[AZ-Observing] Re: Grand Canyon Star Party South - DAY EIGHT - Another Great One, Over Far Too Soon
- From: "Wayne (aka Mr. Galaxy)" <mrgalaxy@xxxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, taaaforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2012 02:18:07 GMT
Benson, AZ 85602
hm ph: 520-586-2244 Great set of write-ups, Jim. I've enjoyed reading about
your adventures. I, too, would like to hear how the North Rim people did.
Clear skies,
Wayne (aka Mr. Galaxy)
---------- Original Message ----------
From: Skylook123@xxxxxxx
To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Grand Canyon Star Party South - DAY EIGHT - Another
Great One, Over Far Too Soon
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2012 21:23:26 -0400 (EDT)
Forgot to post the final night's observations. Better late than never, I
suppose.
Grand Canyon Star Party - DAY EIGHT - Again, Over Too Soon
Location: Grand Canyon Visitor Center, South Rim of Grand Canyon, AZ, about
340 miles north of home in Tucson, about 7000 ft elevation
Weather: 90 mid-day, 75 at sunset, 55 when we quit to pack up after 11 PM.
Clear skies, Not much wind all day, calm at night.
Seeing and Transparency: Both very good, but still annoying lights from Las
Vegas and Grand Canyon Village.
Equipment:
18” f/5 2286mm Teeter Telescope newtonian truss dob, Sky Commander DSCs
10" Meade SCT on Atlas EQ-G mount
Those of you wanting the feel of the Grand Canyon Star Party will want to
check this video by John Bransky:
_https://vimeo.com/44453405_ (https://vimeo.com/44453405)
Before I begin the final observing report for the 22nd annual Grand Canyon
Star Party, I must apologize for being remiss in not giving Joe Bergeron's
web site for enjoying (and most certainly shopping through) his wonderous
creations. As Joe introduces his web site,
"Somewhere in a wooded realm, I, Joe Bergeron, dwell in my lofty wizard's
den, crafting marvels of all descriptions. The sun, moon, and stars keep
watch over all my doings. I'm an artist, specializing in space art and
astronomical art, an amateur astronomer, and a writer. Venture forth into my
web
site to be fascinated, thrilled, and annoyed by me and all my works."
Please visit _http://joebergeron.com/_ (http://joebergeron.com/) and find
your muse hidden in the infinite beauty of Joe's creations.
Following our traditional last day pot luck in Mather Campground, we got
ready for tonight. I fixed the hand controller, charged up the batteries,
and we headed down to the site. I moved the big dob into a spot that was
convenient to the common equipment table but gave Craig Averell and Paul
Lorenz much more room to work. Meanwhile, Craig from Kingman, AZ had
convinced
a friend from Kingman, to come and join the fun, so by the time we sorted
it out, we were all spaced well.
We hit the theater early so that Dennis Young, from the Sedona, AZ club
Sirius Lookers, our speaker for the evening, could give astronomers a look at
a great high speed montage of several thousand Cassini images merged as a
three minute movie. Nothing can match flying adjacent to the ring plane and
looking backwards, or zooming by moons or seeing Saturn like a huge
basketball on the giant theater screen.
After we cleared the astronomers we opened up for Dennis' Astro Geology
tour of Arizona, night visages of famous Arizona geological landmarks with
direct moonlight, reflected moonlight, distant city light, all of it film
photography and all of it a unique blend of heaven and earth, many with comets
Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp, aurora borealis, or other special astral events to
highlight the images. The audience enjoys the stories of packing into the
photographic sites nearly as much as the photos. And Dennis gives out
postcard samples of his photography to the audience after his talk. Please
visit _http://www.sedonastarlight.com/_ (http://www.sedonastarlight.com/)
and become immersed in the duality of astronomy with geology.
With the nature of their talks, both Joe's and Dennis' by necessity run a
bit long. Rushing them bothers me to no end. So next year, we will start
the presentations 10 minutes earlier, to allow a more reasonable time for
covering the craft that each of these visionaries have for us.
I was doing the 9 PM tour while Laura Jevtich closed up the theater so I
hurried up to the scopes and found grandson Thomas, thirteen years old but
might be five feet tall on tip toes, four steps up the ladder with the 18"
showing and teaching Mizar. A little bit higher than I cared for him to be,
so I had him move it down to the Ring. An incredible view in a 19mm
Panoptic. All of the grandkids can rock and roll with a dob, and Jessica does
wonders with the 10" as well, so I had no problem with Thomas working the big
dob but I like to keep the elevation down for the visitors. Fifteen year
old Karina was helping our Interpretive Ranger Marker Marshall count
visitors, and 17 year old Jessica had the Hercules cluster in the 10". They
don't really need me tonight! Actually, as the sun was setting, my wife
Susan,
always the high school physics teacher, showed Stephan how to set the
scope down low and show people how it worked, with red lights under the chins
of people near the front, and no eyepiece in the focuser viewing the
creature faces. About thirty or forty people really got a good view of how a
Newtonian telescope worked, and rumor has it were quite entertained with one
guest standing near the mirror's focal point saying she wanted to buy one
because it was the best she'd looked in years.
I headed on down to do the 9 PM constellation tour for about 65 folks, and
it was, as always, a great experience. Many visitors want to know where
their astrological constellation is, and are usually disappointed when only
five or six are ever up in the sky. They do seem to enjoy seeing what
they've heard about, and the Milky Way was nearly casting a shadow. We had to
finish far too soon, so I headed up for some "me" time at the 18".
Probably had about 60 visitors in the next hour, mixing the discussions with
eye
candy like the Ring, Markarian's Chain, Whirlpool, and The Lagoon, and
general constellation and mythology discussions. Over far too soon.
Our actual physical count of visitors rounding the corners of the Visitor
Center was about 1400, matching most nights' attendance. Even if each
visitor only looked through six telescopes, that would mean 8,400 contacts
tonight so we are pushing well over the 60,000 visitor contact level for the
week.
The girls were a tremendous help taking down the site, and we were fully
packed for the trip home by around 11:30. The roadies have really shined
again this week.
The level of support by the National Park Service Interpretive Rangers,
especially Marker Marshall, my counterpart with NPS with a real gift for
getting this ready, and Mike Weaver, who always makes me laugh about the
adventure, and my partner in night tours Laura Jevitch who we borrowed from
Desert
View to help out, is direct example of the positive effect of your tax
dollars at work. Marker has been a tremendous inspiration to me, and I am
grateful for all that she has done to make this happen for us.
There have been some key environmental changes over the last two years, and
they've been surprisingly well accepted by the astronomers, all due to
Ginger Applegarth and Marker Marshall. The 7 PM popsicle meeting around the
sign-in cart became a tradition about 10 minutes into the first one. And
Information Central at Ginger Applegarth and Alan Delman's motor home in
Space 34 was an Oh Wow Where Has This Been revelation. Ginger had white foam
core boards of pictures of lots of the astronomers that Marker would print
out during the day, and we had a Get Well letter for Erich Karkoshka for
people to sign, with a sketch by Joe Bergeron. I don't know if many of you
are aware of it, but the Thursday before GCSP he was diagnosed with cancer
of the immune system and was anemic. He tried to sneak up on the first
Saturday anyway, but just couldn't do it. It's a temporary thing, but having
that sign board of get well's and Joe's sketch was out there all week for
folks to drop in was a wonderful thing for Ginger to do.
Oh, and I'll bet Sim Picheloup beat his personal best. Last I heard, he
was near 1000 on Thursday alone counting both 7 AM show ups at the Rim for
over 700 contacts in daylight, and a night with the visitors. Animal!
The only two nights with official counts of visitors were both close to or
over 1400, compared to 850 on a big night at Yavapai. Marker wouldn't
believe the new electronic hip counters down by the building corners, so she
and my granddaughter Karina sat out on the final Saturday night and found
that the counters were running about 200 LOW. Every night I stayed late I had
onesie-twosie visitors until after midnight. Oh, and Marker and Mike
Weaver made a 7' wide no-scopes chalk walkway down the middle. Spooky having
a steady flow all the way up to the top. Most of the visitor count sheets
turned in to me were running over 325 a night; that's fifty more apiece
than usual. The visitors didn't stop cold at 10-1030 like last year. Every
time I'd think about packing up around 10:45, here comes another dozen.
Paul Lorenz had a steady flow until after midnight every night! And the high
winds on Thursday caused the big iron to mostly pull out for Friday and
Saturday - up north we were left with Craig Averill's 20" Obsession, my 18",
Paul's 14", a 16", and Joe Bergeron's 6" gorgeous refractor. Plus Steve
Ratts, and a few other 12" class in the permanent location. The last night
Dennis Young and at least 8 others were going strong down below after
midnight when I left, and about 8 hearty folks were rockin' the top. Wow.
Just
Wow.
We have done some things differently this year, and learned a bit more
about using this special location, and I wish GCSP 2013 was starting tomorrow.
I hope some of those great folks at the cozy North Rim let us know how it
went up there.
--------------------
Jim O'Connor
South Rim Coordinator
Grand Canyon Star Party
gcsp[at]tucsonastronomy.org
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