by Shneor Sherman
Temple Bar is quite a drive - about 10 hours under the best conditions, from DAvis. It's a prime site for the Las Vegas amateur astronomers, as it's relatively dark except for Las Vegas skyglow (like Sacramento's at Blue Canyon). The campsites are closed until leter in the season, but they allow tha astronomy club to use the site in the late winter when no one else is there.
Conditions had been stormy prior to my arrival, but shortly afterwards, the sky cleared and I set up. I had the largest telescope there by at least 4 inches. I did have some brief excellent views, probablt the best of which was 10 galaxies in a field in Virgo (including M84 and M86). Also had a nice view of the Ghost of Jupiter, it certainly looks like the disk of a planet at low power, kind of jaggy at higher power. One of the locals who does not have a telescope adopted me for awhile, so I demonstrated the telescope on a number of objects for him as he's in the market...Unfortunately, the wind came up and by 10:30 it was too blustery to continue, so I packed up and drove back to Las Vegas...3 states in one day...the wedding was fun - I got the lucky couple a telescope, of course.