Phew. Just got back from SCAC's annual outing to Glacier Pt in Yosemite.

Friday, my wife and I got a late start, so we didn't get to the campground and setup for camping until nearly 10:30pm. The sky looked pretty grim so we passed on making the trek out to Glacier Pt, instead concentrated on getting our kids settled down. When the rest of the group who WAS out at Glacier Pt trickled back to Bridalveil Creek Campground, my guess was confirmed, the seeing ranged from wretched to none.

Saturday on the other hand was a gorgeous warm (nee, HOT) clear day, so with the best of hopes, we headed out to Glacier Pt around 7pm... The site has been greatly upgraded from last year, there is now a paved path around the rim of the ampitheatre, and a dirt road loop which can hold around 5 cars at once for unloading (and reloading). This worked out great. As the sky darkened, the last of the clouds off to the western horizon across Yosemite Valley disappeared. Seeing was excellent. Clarity was excellent. Darkness was breathtaking. The Milky Way was directly overhead most of the evening, M31 was a naked eye object... We had a good turnout of park visitors, all of whom were suitably impressed by the myriad of sights, asked reasonably intelligent questions about the equipment and sky, and thanked us for bringing this to them.

A highlight of the evening... Friday was the maiden launch of the Stereo Dobson. SCAC members Dwight Elvey and Chris Angelos have built a dual 13" dobson that sits on a double-wide alt-az dobson style base. The two 'focusers' are facing each other and are actually used for interocular adjustment, and have 1.25" star diagonals in them, the eyepieces are parallel to the main optical axis. You put your head between the two tubes, with your back to the object and stare at the sky in total disbelief. They were using 25mm eyepieces, I'd guess around 60X(?), Andromeda, Jupiter, various brighter DSOs like Lagoon, Swan, Saturn were what I saw, stealing peeks in between our guests.

I suggested that what they _really_ need is to score a WW-II vintage Dodge Power Wagon Deuce-n-a-half flatbed, and the powered AA turret off a old battleship, mount the telescopes on said turret, and give the operator a pair of joysticks to steer it with :)