The Arizona Star party at the Grand Canyon

In brief (for me):

I got to attend Arizona star party for two nights (6-17 and 18) while on vacation with the family at the Grand Canyon. This was a family trip not a planned star party visit. It just happened to be 0.5 miles from our lodge. Thus my time was limited by the need to be awake doing family activities during the day.

Highlights:

I met John Dobson. This was a treat for me because of what he has done for amateur astronomy and as I like dobsonian mounted scopes. It was all the more surprising as I thought that he was dead! It came about like this. I was wandering areound in the dark and bumped into Jane Houston Jones of the San Fransisco Side Walk Astronomers. She was there with her husband "Mojo" (Morris Jones) and Barry Peckham of Light box telescopes. They had one of his 12.5", 15", and 18" models on display. His scopes store the UTA inside the mirror box and produce a self stabilizing frame to create a light weight airline portable (well at least for the 12.5") scope. (Their site is Light Box Telescopes The scopes were nice, but stiff compared to the Obsession. (But you can’t take the Obsession with you on a plane.) While observing, she said that she’d bring "John over". I was afraid that she was going to get an Urn as (a) I thought that he was dead and (b) she is from San Francisco. But John was very much alive and quite entertaining. He spent most of his time that evening talking with people who’d never looked through a scope and getting them up on the ladders. He is very pleasant. Short and thin yet commanding a great presence while projecting an aura of calm. I got to shake his hand.

It was very windy, My tripod mounted 7x50 binos went to ground twice because of it. I got to look through a 28 in home built single arm support at the Dumbell. It looks like a 4 leaf clover. What are faint side lobes in the 20" glowed in the 28"!

I peaked through a TAK 5" at Mars but the wind made it a not to pretty sight.

A guy was there with a 80 mm bino scope. This offered pleasing views of the Milky Way.

Next to it was a 14.5 homebuilt autographed by John Dobson, owner drove 2.5 days from VA to get here.

I also saw a 16 in starhopper tube dob but didn’t get to look through it (They were packing it in because of wind)

There were Several 8 in SCTs. I saw One nextstar 8, the owner had trouhle aligning.

A guy with a LX200 8 in. had better luck but wind was a problem.

I ended the evening with a guy who owner a 15" Obsession who was burned out. He let me point it at what ever I liked. I took in the ring, M81/82, the double double in Lyrae, M13 and then the wind made him decide to take his scope down. He taught me a few tricks about taking down the Obsession that he had learned fron Dave Kriege when he picked up the scope. That was a bonus.

There was a 8" orion Dob next to him but we never looked through it.

As everyone was packing it in (about this time a gust of wind knocked down my bino tripod – the binos survived though) and I packed it in to at about midnight.

But you know before we left we just sat and looked at the sky. I don’t know the magnitude but I’d say 7. I heard that about 3 AM when the wind died down the seeing was incredible and powers of 600x plus were used on Mars. A few scattered clouds but otherwise clear. Milky Way detail was amazing several dark lanes were present. Saw what they called the "on ramp" – a bright extension of glow above the plane of the galaxy. WOW!

day 2

The next day I got there about 9PM - just after John Dobson spoke, I was crushed to have missed the talk but my wife has these crazy ideas about dinner, and there had been the Hike down the Rright Angle Trail (i.e. into the canyon) and the drive out the East rim of the Grand Canyon. It was less windy this day.

I had been on the upper field the day before so I visited the lower field. I passed several 10" reflectors on home made EQ mounts. And a 8" meade SCT. A very friendly guy showed me his 6" Mak Newt, well baffeled, very tiny secondary. Had pleasing views of Mars.

I visited (?Chuck ?James) who had recently bought a used 20 in Obsession with 4.5 in home made finder on the UTA. I looked at M13 to see what it would have looked like with my scope and had planned to return but …

Right next door was Mike Spooner who was there with a home made 20" dob and a home made 9" "folded refractor". The crowd passed on ad I was there with him and a guy named james who has a C5 and is new to the hobby. Mike said "Its kind of boring to be out here by yourself, you’re welcome to stay." So we did. He also said things like "maybe I should go get that Ziess Eyepiece." I like this guy.

The Refractor was used to observe mars at 300-600x. It has the interesting property that the eyepiece position never changes.

We spent most of the time with the Dob looking at things like M13, M92, M81/82, The Swan and Trifid nebulae, etc. etc. We’d swap out filters and EP. Saw the central star of the ring.

Periodically some one would come by to see the folded refractor. And we’d stop to peak at Mars. Later ?Chuck? from the 20" Obsession came over with a Televue bino viewer with a pair of 18mm radians and we againg looked at Mars – with and with out a 6" aperture mask. I like these guys. James from PA was "blown away". I found the bino viewer somewhat hard to use but I have narrow interpupillary distance.

Later Frank ? who owns what Mike says is the best 10" mirror that he’s ever made (Mike calls himself Aerobic Optical – for that perfect figure) came by so we had to leave Mike’s scopes and look through Frank’s. Yes, I think that is the best 10" mirror (of course extremely well collimated optics) that I’ve ever used. Franks scope is very high contrast. We had amazing views of Mars (best of the evening), M51, M13, trifid, Swann, ring, etc. Frank has a Tom Osypowski Compact Platform which helped out the high power views a lot.

I looked through a 8" SCT on the way out but the views could not stack up to what had just been seen with the 10".

Finally at 2 AM I had to call it quits because I had to get up the next morning and drive. It was interesting to see that many people quit early. If I’d been in star party and not vacation mode I’d have stayed.

What was amazing was the complete absence of dew. These guys are spoiled.

Dark Skys Rule.