Observing Report - Back In The Saddle

Location: Triangle YMCA Camp, Oracle, AZ, in the Catalina Mountains, about 4500 ft. elevation

Weather: 97F mid-day, 90F at sunset, 80F when we quit near 11 PM. Almost total overcast.

Seeing and Transparency: Pretty much non existent. Monsoon seasonal overcast and rain clouds were everywhere, although two holes opened up for part of the night - one around the triangle of Antares, Mars, and Saturn, and the other around the handle of the Big Dipper, a portion of Draco, and the bowl of the Little Dipper.

Equipment:
90mm Orion ShortTube refractor on an Atlas EQ-G mount
Mallincam Xterminator video system on the 10", 19" QFX LCD monitor.

This report is written not especially because of a noteworthy observing experience, but more in celebration of getting back to astronomy while recovering from surgery. Some of you may know the back story. My primary care physician retired last December and sold the practice to a pair of nurse practitioners, who began to review patient records. In March, they discovered that there was several year old data indicating that my thyroid was failing and I had some potential cardiac issues, none of which was I aware. We started several months of drug therapy to get the thyroid back up to functioning, and also a cardiac test series. Cardiac testing was inconclusive, since I was doing heavy exercise and took a cardiac stress test with no pain or EKG indications, but a CAT scan showed high calcium and a PET scan showed a shadow. The decision was made that after I got done with the Grand Canyon Star Party, where I'm the coordinator, we'd do a 35 minute catheterization and possible stent installation.

GCSP was even busier than usual since it was a special memorial to Joe Orr who provided a tremendous support to the Grand Canyon Association Dark Skies Project, and the IDA awarding Provisional International Dark Sky Park status to Grand Canyon National Park. It seemed every day there were local and national news media interviews, and I was feeling run down the whole week. Four days after GCSP, the catheterization showed five arteries blocked from 95 to 99.1%, so life changed as I was cracked open like a lobster for six hours of surgery and five bypasses. Recovery has gone very well, but cutting the chest muscles and the sternum means a long time to get back to being able to lift much weight. When this opportunity for our club, Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association to assist a special high school of talented and gifted students came about, I invited myself to join the group providing the night show.

The weather, though, got in the way of the scheduled event with full overcast and thunderstorms. It was decided to try again the next night, but only two of the four of us could make it. That left Bob Williams, relatively new to the club and never having supported a star party, and myself to see what we could coax out of the sky. I fully intended to only use the 90mm refractor and a small Orion GEM mount to limit any lifting; no element heavier than about 8 pounds.

When we got to the site, there was virtually total overcast except for one sucker hole right around Mars, Saturn, and Antares. Bob set up his 11", and on a whim I opened the Atlas mount head box and found that my rehabilitation therapy on weights made it an easy lift, and, since it has GOTO, I went ahead and changed plans. I was able, ALL BY MYSELF, to set up the Atlas mount with the 90mm, but there wasn't enough sky for me to get things lined up with this new combination, like polar alignment, or even the finder on the scope or camera calibration with this setup. Eventually, I was able to use a light on one of the dormitory buildings to collimate the finder with the camera, but the sky was awful so I decided to just back up Bob on his first star party experience. Bob did great on getting Saturn, which was a big hit, and I did cultural talk. We had Navajo, Apache, and Yaqui students in the mix and they loved it, and everything I said awakened memories and they ate it all up! Imagine three+ hours of Bob showing off Saturn and Mizar while I did the astro talking about the objects and mixing in Native American and other cultural talk. Some of the students had studied Greek lore, so we had great discussions of comparative mythology like Pleadies, Taurus, Gemini, and the Scorpius-Libra overlap, shifting from Greek into Navajo, Cherokee, and Seminole.

When Bob pointed out the Mars-Saturn-Jupiter line, I used it to introduce the whole ecliptic and zodiakos kyklos comparison and how we get the term Zodiac. We made a good team with him finding things (well, Saturn and Mizar; we had the handle of the Big Dipper), while I was then able to jump into the Mizar-Alcor discussion and there being six stars there and all the things that can be said about leadership tests, buffalo hunting, and other uses for Mizar-Alcor. Then we talked about the companion blue-hot star Sidus Ludoviciana (Ludwigs' Star) and shifted into a discussion of stellar temperatures and the visible spectrum. It wowed them when they learned that Sidus Ludoviciana is actually high irradiance among the seven stars in the Mizar field, but much of it is up in the ultraviolet. Arcturus had popped out, so we talked about red-cold, with intensity lost in the infrared.

It ended up a spectacular night, with Bob and his scope and me backing him up with the talk and tell. We stayed until after 11 PM!! We made a heck of a lot of friends; the Native American students were very happy to learn elements of their own cultures and all kinds of comparisons like White Mountain, Mescalero, and Chiricahua Apache differences. So many individual one-on-one "tell me more, please" moments. One young lady really wanted more Navajo, so we talked the Scorpius-First Great One-Mother-in-Law and Orion-First Slender One-Son-in-Law rules and that if she married a Navajo, he and her mother would not be allowed to see or talk to each other for the rest of their lives. Many more similar happenings in over four hours, like Hopi and Cherokee discussions.

For Bob's first try with about 30 or more students and adults, he was great at it and is he going to be quite an asset for us when he's here.

We done GOOD! Astronomy with not much above.

Jim O'Connor
South Rim Coordinator
Grand Canyon Star Party
gcsp@tucsonastronomy.org