[AZ-Observing] GCSP_2013_South_Rim_Day_Two

From: Skylook123@xxxxxxx
To: taaaforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:57:41 -0400 (EDT)
Grand Canyon Star Party - DAY TWO - A Good Ending To An Odd Day
 
Location: Grand Canyon Visitor Center, South Rim of Grand Canyon, AZ, about 
 340 miles north of home in Tucson, about 7000 ft elevation
 
Weather: Low 90s at Noon, Low 80s at sunset, under 50 when we quit at 11  
PM. Occassional clouds, gusty winds, still a nice night.
 
Seeing and Transparency: Pretty crisp and steady, considering the  gusts.
 
Equipment: 
18â f/5 2286mm Teeter Telescope newtonian truss dob, Sky  Commander DSCs
10" Meade SCT on Atlas EQ-G mount
Mallincam Junior video  imaging system on 10", 13.3" LCD monitor.
 
The day started out hot again.  It was the day of the welcome pizza  party 
in the campground, which has had a menu expansion thanks to our wonderful  
information coordinator Ginger Applegarth and her husband Dr. Alan Delman.   
They made up some great salad to go with the pizzas.  This time my wife  
Susan guessed right on the number to order, although I messed up her count by  
insisting on changing one of the vegetarians to sausage.  Should have gone  
the other way.  And, amazingly, the pissas were ready a half hour  early!  
We had a leisurely lunch with about 40 folks, then went back to  rest up and 
write yesterday's report.
 
After dinner we hit the site around 5:30.  The temperature drop was  
starting to be noticeable, and occasional wind gusts were worrisome since I  
would 
be in the theater with the night talk while Stephen would be trying to  
manage the big dob.  A little after 6 PM I met with our speaker, Dr. Tyler  
Nordgren, Astronomy Professor at Redlands University with his PhD from Cornell  
University.  Tyler is also on the board of directors of the International  
Darksky Association, which focuses his attention to our affects on the night 
 sky.  A superbly engaging person to interact with, his special area of  
attention is intraction of the night skies with the National Parks and  
protecting and recovering the night sky environment.  He is also a gifted  
photographer of the night sky, as well as an artist who provided the publicity  
posters for the Annular Solar Eclipse events at four of the western national  
parks last year.
 
Although dubious about the wind, I got Stephen collimated and ready to go,  
and started up the Atlas with the right coordinates and time entries.  The  
plan was for Karina to do the skymap handouts at the theater as usual, then 
head  down and do a stellar alignment, go to Saturn, and start the video 
show.  A  very pleasant surprise was to find that, due to equipment troubles, 
Bill  McDonald had to leave after one night but long time GCSP participant 
Wayne  Thomas showed up with three cameras to help out.  However, he was 
missing  the right adapters for mounting the cameras.  My long time observing  
partner, John Anderson, had an adapter that would work with one of Wayne's  
cameras although it took some duck tape patchwork to complete the 
installation. 
 
Dr. Nordgren's talk is entitled Stars Above, Earth Below; Astronomy In The  
National Parks.  He has travelled and written extensively on the topic, and 
 it shows in his presentation.  Not a single bullet point; just awesome  
night sky pictures that unite our need for the night sky with how it is being  
affected around the world by humanity.  His photography of the Milky Way as 
 seen at various parks, and the effects of light intrusion, tell an 
incredible  story.  We had to adjust the displays on about a dozen of the 
pictures 
so  that they would work best with the theater system, and it came out  
flawless.  I highly recommend buying his book Stars Above, Earth Below:  
Astronomy in the National Parks, proceeds of which are going to support of the  
Grand Canyon Association light footprint reduction effort here at the Grand  
Cayon, which I briefly mentioned in yesterday's observing report.  We  
actually started half an hour or so early, so Tyler could do an astronomy  Q&A 
befor starting the talk.  He also volunteered to do the 10 PM  Constellation 
Tour.  I was not surprised at all around 10:30 PM to hear a  huge ovation at 
the completion of his tour.
 
Now to our adventures.  The wind picked up strongly after we went into  the 
theater.  Stephen immediately shut down the big dob.  Later I  check on it, 
at it was a perfect stowage, with the shroud and ballast perfectly  
installed.  GREAT kid.
 
As I was immersed in Tyler's tremendous talk and tour-de-force on National  
Park skies, Susan snuck in found me and told me that the wind had blown the 
 Computer Cave box off the velcro restraints and took the box, camera and 
monitor  to the pavement.  Oh Joy.  And also had blown so hard that it had  
swung the 10" SCT against the clutches and lost it's sense of position and  
whatever little mind it had.  So, when we were done, I ran out to the 10"  
setup and found Karina had perfectly responded; she had the mount in Park, and 
 the equipment was stowed.  I would later check out the monitor and camera  
in the lodge, no apparent damage!  So we were going visual, not  video.  I 
showed her how to recover Park with an old trick of using a  bulls-eye 
level, rolling weights horizontal and setting RA to 6 Hr, leveling the  OTA and 
setting DEC to latitude.  Rolled it all back to zero indicators,  perfect 
park.  We rechecked Polar and it was OK, not great.  Did a two  star alignment, 
again OK, not great, but could get targets in a low power  eyepiece.  But 
the focus was set for camera use, so we pulled off the focus  motor to get 
more range of motion and got focus back in the eyeball range  instead of 
camera.  By this time, I was shivering in the cold winds and the  kids were 
kind 
of stressed out about the problems although that had each  performed 
perfectly.  So, I called Susan and she came back to pick them up  and bring me 
a 
jacket.  Then the night became wonderful for my personal  interests.  I went 
right to the Hercules Cluster, M-13, and it was awesome  at about 120X.  Next 
hour and a half was showtime, with a great cluster of  visitors with 
insightful questions as I explained the half million old stars  around a 
super-massive black hole they were really seeing.  Despite having  to totally 
pack up 
the whole site, I was really psyched - finally some eyepiece  time with 
visitors.  Can't wait for tonight to get back to Hercules in the  video 
monitor.  Now THAT will bring tears to your eyes.  Then, we'll  try PanSTARRS 
and 
the Dumbbell so I can see what this camera will really  do.  Oh, and we have 
the meteor shower predicted for around 1:30 AM local  time.  This is due to 
a long period comet that last demonstrated a shower  in the 1930s, with a 
Zenith Hourly Rate of 30 in a full moon.  With a one  day old moon, we might 
be in for a real treat!
 
Tried some solar this morning, clouds in the way.  I'm the speaker  
tonight, so gotta get my act together. 
 
The adventure continues! 
 
Jim  O'Connor
South Rim Coordinator
Grand Canyon Star Party
_gcsp@tucsonastronomy.org_ (mailto:gcsp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
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[AZ-Observing] GCSP_2013_South_Rim_Day_Two

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