[LVAS] Redstone Tonight

[Fred Rayworth]

Rob,

 

Well, my group for Redstone called off so I went to meet you guys at Valley of Fire. However, when I got to the visitor's center, they knew nothing about it. They unlocked the restrooms for me and left. Elena and her husband showed up and we thought maybe you'd got stuck in that truck wreck on I-15 just before Racetrack road. With nobody else there, and since we drove all that way, we decided two were enough and set up in the lower parking lot. Then our former club president (just before you) showed up with his 16" LightBridge. He said something about Campground 2 and went looking for it. A while later he came back after a fruitless search so the three of us set up and had a great time.

 

I nailed maybe a dozen new objects and got both the February challenge and the supplemental. However, despite the eastern sky looking clear, it really wasn't. I guess that band of high clouds moved to the east and made the sky background glow really bad. The only reason I was able to get the challenge objects was because they were so bright. I looked for a few other galaxies near them that were in the Mag 12 range and couldn't see a thing. However, there were plenty of sucker holes in the garbage up there and I got some killer views around Orion, Monoceros, Gemini, and Cancer. And, speaking of Cancer, Mars looked great. I saw the dark markings of what I think was Olympus Mons, and watched as it roated throughout the evening. I also could have sworn I saw two polar caps. I even had the scope cranked up to 440X at one point and between blurs, caught a few details on the surface.

 

It was funny that at times, the sky was so pristine and the stars so sharp. Yet there were plenty of spots were everything was dull and the background lit up like I was in town.

 

Since my backup plan was done in a panic at the last minute, I never found the correct directions to where you guys set up. On the web site, the link at the side just goes to a reminder page. Both Elena and I could have sworn you all said the visitor's center, so that is where we went. Good thing I didn't go looking for Campground #2 where the sign points to "Campgroud" which would have taken us up the wrong road. So, in my rush, I ended up in the wrong place. Still, I had a great night.

 

Elena left a bit before me and our former president did, but we gave up about 9:45 as my paper Megastar charts were getting pretty soggy and I was getting dew on everything.

 

Hope your all-nighter went well.

 

Fred

 


 


From: scopegeek at gmail.com
To: lvas at lvlug.org
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 10:40:17 -0800
Subject: Re: [LVAS] Redstone Tonight