Grand Canyon Star Party - Part One of Three: Weather Miseries

Event: Grand Canyon Star Party
Date: June 16-19, 2004
Location: One quarter mile south of Yavapai Point, South Rim of Grand Canyon,
AZ, about 340 miles north of home in Tucson, near 8000 ft elevation
Weather: Up to low 90s during the days, dropping to low 50s during the
evenings.
Equipment: 18" f/5 2286mm Tectron newtonian truss dob, Sky Commander DSCs, 22mm
TV Panoptic (104X, 0.65deg FOV), 18mm Celestron Ultima (127X, 0.39 FOV), 9mm TV
Nagler (254X, 0.32 FOV), 2X Celestron Big Barlow, Lumicon Ultra High Contrast
and OIII filters.
Seeing: Varied between 5/5 and 3/5 (depending on unsettled local weather
patterns); Transparency: Extremely clear 5/5 (Days two and three) to 2/5 (Day
four)

DAY ONE OF FOUR - Weather Miseries.
We headed to the GCSP from Albuquerque after spending a few days visting
grandkids there. We drove over in two leisurely days, stopping in Winslow AZ
overnight. Nice little town.

GCSP is an annual collaboration between the National Park Service and the
Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association to bring observational astronomy to the
Park visitors. This was our second year in a row, staying four nights this
time.

Dean Ketelsen once again did a great coordinating both daytime and nighttime
astronomy outreach at the Park. And outreach it is; we observers are
privileged to serve as "National Park Service Interpretive Volunteers," the NPS
publicizes the event, and from the time the 8PM slide show at the Yavapai
Observation Station is finished until about Midnight, the crowds come by to ooh
and aah.

Bernie Sanden from Gilbert, AZ has a great web site of pictures from the event:
http://www.pbase.com/bsanden/grand_c...tar_party_2004
My scope is on page four: "The "Pit" And It's Inhabitants Awaiting The Dark"

For the first four nights, I'm told the weather was very cooperative.
Unfortunately, our first night was lost to threatening cloud cover. As we left
Winslow we could see some small cloudiness ahead, but most of it appeared to be
stationary contrails that were merging throughout the morning.

We got to the park around noon. Since we couldn't check in until 4PM, we
dropped off the scope at the observing site and set it up, although the weather
was starting to roll in. Then we headed over to the shopping area, and lunch.
When we came out of the cafeteria, rain drops were falling and the wind was
blowing. So we hurried over to the site and did a semi-takedown and reloaded
the truck. We were allowed to check into Yavapai Lodge early, so we went to
the room and watched the Weather Channel to get a prognosis. It was claiming
that the weather was clear, and forecast to be clear! Later it said that the
skies would clear after sundown. Knowing how the weather changes rapidly here,
I decided to head on over to the site and set up again in late afternoon; the
rain threat had moved on. Plus, I was looking around for Jim, "Strsurfr7", a
long time astro email buddy from Salt Lake City, who'd been at GSCP for the
previous four nights.

The sky never cleared up; some raindrops started falling during the sundown
slide show, so I headed down to the scope to make sure everything was secure.
While I was down there, Jim found me, and we finally met after six years of
emailing. Some of us hung around until 9 o'clock or so, but the winds were up
around 30 mph and the sky was totally covered so I left the scope horizontal
with the weather shield on and pointed into the wind, and left. Later I heard
that the sky cleared around midnight, but when I woke up the sky was back to
being mostly cloudy, and still windy.
(Continued)

Jim
"A Bad Night With A Telescope
Beats a Good Night Doing Anything Else"