[AZ-Observing] Early Report on Desert Sunset Star Party
- From: Dean Ketelsen <ketelsen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 3 May 2003 11:02:22 -0700 (MST)
Hi All-
Thought I'd give a brief description of this new star party
that is being held this weekend down at the Kartchner Caverns State
Park between Benson and Sierra Vista. It is put together by Pat
and Arlene Heimann, who have worked on it for over a year now. It
started thursday night with clear skies, but pretty variable seeing.
Last night was my first night there - I was one of the features speakers
with my standard astronomy tour/astrophotography talk that many of
you have seen at the Grand Canyon Star Party every year. Also, there
was a great talk on past and upcoming Mars exploration missions, and
Howard Israel gave an entertaining talk on "So You Married an Astronomer".
I wasn't sure what to expect as I was driving down friday
afternoon. It is the weekend of TSP, and it was also a TAAA meeting
night (first friday). Also, a lot of us in Arizona are spoiled by the
relatively accessible dark skies - if you want to do serious observing,
why go where there are other people, distractions, and occasional stray
lights? It was obviously a well-planned event - check-in took all of
about 5 seconds (I had preregistered), and I was invited to check out
the vendor booths - yes, vendors... Represented were IDA with some great
new displays, Coronado Instruments, Tucson astronomy outlets Starizona,
Stellarvision, and Skyworks, and a couple others I wasn't familiar with.
With about an hour to spend before the pizza feed (sponsored by
Coronado Instruments) I took the short walk to the visitor center of
Kartchner Caverns and took in the displays and video (entry is free
with star party registration, though if you want to tour the cave, you
need to pre-reserve and pay standard admission). Just a walk thru the
visitor center though was spectacular and had me wishing I had the time
to go thru the cave tour (another time for sure).
I got back just in time for the pizza feed and it was amazing -
really great pies from a Benson outlet, perhaps 30 large pizzas of all
combinations, though one fellow who was looking for an unadulterated
cheese-only was disappointed. Again, sponsored by Coronado, it was
a great way to meet other attendees, and for Pat and Arlene to pass
out door prizes. There was a fairly good size crowd for this first-time
event. I think registration was just under 100, and with all the door
prizes they were passing out, seems like one person in 3 or 4 won something.
As the sun set behind the Whetstone mountains, I was to give my talk, but
the sky was still quite bright for the first part of the slide show, making
some difficult to see well. But I had about 25 people by the end checking
out my astrophotos taken by scopes I've made myself. After two more talks,
it was easily dark enough to observe, so I headed to the observing area.
There were some thin clouds early and I was initially interested in doing
some photography, so I didn't set up the C-14 I had brought. Instead,
I observed with TAAA member George Barber and his 12" LX-200. It was
a good night, surprizingly good seeing with the thin cirrus, which
dissipated as the observing went on.
The sky darkness was quite good - there was the dim glow of
Tucson, mostly blocked by the Whetstone Mountains to the NW, which reached
up to about 6 or 7 degrees into the sky. To the south was the glow of
Sierra Vista, and if you walked a few dozen yards, you could see some
of the distant direct lights 20 miles further to the south. The glow
wan't too objectionable, though and Omega Centauri could still be easily
made out naked eye. Those were the only light domes visible and the
sky was quite dark everywhere else. George and I had some very good views
of the major spring galaxies and amazed some of the small crowd of neophytes
that ambled by. Most of the attendees had their own instruments and with
only a few wanderers, lines were very short or non-existant.
Wimp that I am (getting up at 5am every morning to go to work
puts a crimp in my evening schedules) I left the field about 11 and made the
65 minute drive back home in Tucson. I'd consider staying overnight next
year - the campground is only a couple hundred yards away, and several
motels are up at I-10 which is 8 miles away. They actually have the telescope
field guarded during the day.
The star party wraps up tonight. They've got some top notch speakers
lined up, including local weather personality Jimmy Steward, who is a
TAAA member. Weather forecast is iffy, but if it is reasonable again like
yesterday, I'm tempted to make the trip again, even without the free pizza
(a friday nite only feature). I think they've waived the late-registration
and it would cost you $10 for walk-up attendance. Oh - I forgot to mention
that the Caverns close and lock the gate after 7pm, so if you do go on my
account, make sure you get there before then. For the official website of
the Desert Sunset Star Party, check out
http://chartmarker.tripod.com/sunset.htm for more information.
-Dean
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