by Stacy Jo McDermott
A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to participate with the Santa Cruz Astronomy Club up at Yosemite for their weekend as park volunteers due to a slight shortage of club members being able to participate with their telescopes.
I decided to take up the new(to me), yet un-named 10 inch Dobsonian that Robert Perri had built and sold to me at the beginning of August.
The drive up was quite pleasant, and we were able to secure our campsites that Yosemite had graciously provided. However, because the Bridal Veil Campground was quite crowded, day-time napping was an exercise in tuning out the noise.
Friday night we set up at Glacier Point. Bob Naeye (editor of "The Mercury" - the magazine published by ASP) gave a very good 30 minute talk on the basics of astronomy, telescopes and what to look for and why certain objects are special. As it got dark, we began to point our telescopes on different objects. My object for the night was the Andromeda Galaxy. Not only is it a crowd pleaser, it was the only object that I was able to find readily due to forgetting my finder! (I had been finishing up my move to Pacifica during the week and my packing was lacking).
Saturday night I'm sad to say was not good for me. My main mirror had totally come out of alignment for almost two hours I sat fiddling with trying to get collination. After that amount of time, I packed up the telescope and re-visited M objects with my binoculars and spoke with some of the public about the the joys of binocular viewing. At least I was able to do something with those who were interested, but the telescopes got the majority of the people which left me some time to catch a short nap before waiting for the last quarter moon to rise from behind Half Dome. Craig (I'm sorry I forgot his last name) was in attendance specifically for lunar viewing. He does some spectacular lunar drawings and has inspired me to take a chance and use ink for my lunar sketchings.
Sunday night was absolutely the best, both for my telescope and for interacting with the public. While the crowds weren't as big as on Saturday night, we had enthusiastic attendees. Prior to Sunday night's program, Dwight (president of the SCAC) kindly helped me with my main mirror (OH MY GOSH, he's taking the primary out of the telescope!!). It was a very good lesson in newtonian design tweeking and trouble-shooting. Now I'm much more comfortable with handling the optics. We got the mirrors aligned and waited to leave for Glacier Point...holding my breath, I hoped that the mirror would stay put for the drive up to Glacier Point. It did. I was estatic. Bob Naeye also had an extra Telrad that I gaffered taped onto the the upper cage assembly. Everything came together quite nicely Sunday evening. Even though I needed to tweek it even more, the telescope performed beautifully. Views of M13, Albireo, Andromeda, t! he Double Cluster, M8, the Ring (donut) Nebula, and Alcor & Mizar were absolutely great. The folks that I had at my telescope were very interested and hung around for a good amount of time. It was nice to be able to chat with folks for a while rather than have an assembly line of people looking through the eyepiece.
Lunar viewing on all nights was very good. It was interesting to see the moon rise and thus you get a perception on how fast the Earth is rotating. I've seen this before, but it nevers fails to amaze me.
We had good seeing all nights, but Saturday and Sunday nights stand out. Transparency was very good. Estimated LM was about 6.5-7 depending on who you asked.
Although not astronomically related, it was fascinating to watch climbers going up Half Dome. Some seemed to bed down for the night half way up and on Sunday night it looked as though a couple of climbers were still at it at night fall. Also, was able to watch hikers going up the Bridal Veil Falls trail, at night! But at about 10PM it looked as though they decided to bed down (we think - it was about at this time we couldn't detect their flashlight beams).
All in all, a good way to meet some great and new folks and take advantage of Yosemite's beauty yet again. Did think and miss you all at Coyote Point however!