by Bob Jardine
All the week before the Texas Star Party, I was waffling. Weather Underground variously reported 30% cloudy to 60%+ cloudy for Ft. Davis. These were relatively-long range forecasts, so I didn't worry a lot. On Thursday, April 20, things improved -- several days of only 30% cloudy starting Sunday, the day I planned to arrive. That was good enough for me, so I decided to go.
April 21, Friday. Packed in the morning and left Cupertino around noon, heading for TSP. 101 to Pacheco pass, then I-5 South. I decided that going through LA on a Friday afternoon wasn't such a hot idea, so I skirted East through Tehachapi, Mojave, and Barstow. Spent the night in a motel in Needles. Weather fine, clear skies. Amazing windmill farm near Tehachapi.
April 22, Sat. Arrived Tucson around 2:00 PM. I was planning to try to drive to El Paso on this day. However, due to the poor weather forecasts for Texas that I had seen the week before, I decided to check one more time. So I found an Internet cafe near the University area and checked. Dang. Sunday was still predicted to be 32% cloudy, but Monday and Tuesday were now predicted to be 70% cloudy. And now we were down to only 48-hour and 72-hour forecasts, so they should be pretty reliable. This did not look good.
After a bleak winter and spring, with hardly any observing under my belt due to clouds in the bay area, I wasn't about to lose the whole week that I had taken off from work. So I checked the weather in Tucson. 5% cloudy tonight, same Sunday night. Why drive 10 or 12 more hours for worse weather? I bailed on TSP.
Checking around on the web, I remembered Starizona. I called them up and asked for directions. People there were nice, handed me a newsletter from the local astronomy club, the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association. I called one of the club officers, whose phone number was on the newsletter. It was 3Q moon Saturday night, and they had observing planned at a local semi-dark site. I got driving directions, found a motel and checked in, then drove out to the TIMPA site -- a ranch about 20 miles West of Tucson, just past a little range of hills that blocked some of the city light.
Folks were friendly. I had a good time. There were maybe 15-20 scopes. Everyone packed up around midnight, so I did too. The site was pretty dark, but not extremely so. Think Coe or Fremont Peak dark, not SSP or LSA dark. But not bad at all for a site so close to town.
I asked around about other observing locations, both earlier that day at Starizona and among the people observing near me. Chiricahua National Monument was mentioned independently at least twice. I checked it out on the web and decided it looked good. Weather for the next few days was predicted clear (5% cloudy) increasing to partly cloudy (10-30% cloudy). Texas weather still looked bad -- still 70% cloudy.
April 23, Sunday. The drive to Chiricahua was easy -- only a few of hours from Tucson. I stopped for some water and food in Willcox, along I-10, and then headed off on the local road. Seemed like out in the middle of nowhere. The National Monument was small, like a tiny National Park. There was a visitor center and campground (one of the nicest campgrounds anywhere, BTW -- nice large sites, individually fenced, with tables and graded tent pitching areas). I set up camp and then drove around. I observed that night at Massai point, a parking lot at the end of the road in the Monument. Great horizons and views all around. It was very windy, but I managed to observe some between the gusts. At about 1:00 AM, I got tired of fighting the wind, which never really let up for long, and drove back down to the campground.
April 24, Monday. Took a very nice hike (about 3.5 miles) in and around the rock formations. This place is slightly like the much larger Bryce Canyon National Park, in that it has a lot of rock towers, with interesting erosion effects (balancing rocks, etc.). I think it formed differently, however. Apparently, there was a huge volcano near here (you can see the outline of the ancient caldera, much like the Mt. Tahema caldera is visible from Mt. Lassen). The Turkey Creek volcano apparently blew up about 15 or 20 million years ago, and it is thought to have been 1000X bigger than the Mt. St. Helens eruption not long ago. Compressed ash from that eruption eventually formed these rock formations.
Monday night I again observed from Massai point. Two observers from Winnepeg joined me (and I thought my drive was long!). They said they come every year! The wind was gone, but we had some annoying clouds here and there all night. It was possible to observe, but you had to pick the best area of the sky, and that often changed. This time, I lasted until around 2:00 AM. Again, fighting the partly-cloudy conditions caused mental fatigue.
April 25, Tuesday. Prior to leaving Tucson, the weather predictions were for clouds to increase over the next few days. I didn't have access to Internet at Chiricahua, and based on Monday night's partly-cloudy conditions, Tuesday didn't seem promising. So I left Chiricahua and drove back to Tucson (via Bisbee and Tombstone, just playing tourist -- Bisbee is an old mining town -- interesting, but I didn't stop; Tombstone, home of the OK Corral and Boot Hill, was kinda Hollywood, but still worth a quick stop). In Tucson, I went back to the same Internet cafe and checked the weather again. Yikes, it would be pretty clear tonight; I probably shouldn't have left Chiricahua so soon.
I considered various observing options, but ultimately, I wasn't up for observing again that night. It was mid-week, so there wouldn't be an "easy" local event, and the TIMPA site that I had observed at the previous Saturday wasn't available without a club officer present. So I'd have to find a new site; plus setting up the scope required completely unpacking the car, camping gear included -- this was one of the down-sides of not going, as planned, to TSP, where I could set up camp and scope for a whole week. Plus I was pretty tired, so I decided to take a night off. I drove to Phoenix, checked into a motel, and collapsed.
April 26, Wednesday. I drove to Flagstaff -- a nice drive -- and visited the Lowell observatory. I'd been there before, but only once, and at night when the visitor center was closed. I took the guided tour, which was interesting and fun. A real worthwhile place to visit if you are ever in the area.
Wednesday was an incredibly beautiful day. Earlier weather predictions did not lead me to believe that I would have an observing night, but I decided to give it a try. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. I checked into a motel, got on the Internet, and got in contact with Brian Skiff, of Skiff & Luginbuhl and Amastro fame. He answered right away with directions to an observing site in Anderson Mesa, just a short drive SE of town. The observing site is near the NPOI facility (Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer), which is operated by Lowell. Only a 20-30 minute drive from town. There I met Bill Ferris, who I knew (indirectly) from reading Amastro. Nice guy; we were both happy to have an observing companion. We observed only for a couple of hours, however, before clouds moved in. The weather prediction was right.
April 27, Thursday. I had no hopes of observing that night, as it was predicted to be very cloudy, with rain possible. I had always wanted to see Sedona, so that's what I did on this day. A short, but beautiful drive South of Flagstaff. Beautiful place, as advertised. Definitely worth a visit. I spent quite awhile driving and walking around the town. Then drove back to Phoenix. As predicted, it was very cloudy and was raining by the time I left town the next morning.
April 28, Friday. Left Phoenix for LA. Had I been at TSP, I would have left this day as well, because I had plans to attend my college class reunion; I don't do that too often, but this was one of the numbers divisible by 5, and a few of my old friends that I hadn't seen in many years were coming from longer distances, so I went.
The drive from Phoenix to LA is easy -- straight West on I-10. A few hours after I left Phoenix, the sky cleared, and it was beautiful all the way to Palm Springs. I hadn't anticipated observing Friday night, but I started thinking: should I just stop around Palm Springs, and observe, say at Joshua Tree? Again, I probably took the sub-optimal choice, and decided to keep driving; I probably could have canceled the motel reservation in LA, but I had an urge to get there.
When I crossed the pass into the LA basin, it turned overcast and foggy. That was even better, perhaps -- if I could get up high, I might be able to have a night with the LA lights blocked by clouds. When I got to the motel, I immediately got on the net and looked at the satellite pictures -- sure enough, the whole LA area was covered, but it looked perfectly clear all around. The only difficulty would be fighting Friday afternoon traffic leaving LA through one of the choke points. I remembered that LA folks historically observed at Mt. Pinos, and I knew vaguely where it was. I Googled "astronomy Mt Pinos" and came directly to a page on the site of the Santa Clarita club with driving directions, etc. It would be a long drive for a single night (around 190 miles round trip), but conditions looked great. The reunion could wait (my original TSP-based plans were to arrive in LA late Saturday, just in time for the main events, so missing the early part of the reunion was already in my plan).
I left the motel around 5:30 PM; traffic wasn't as bad as I feared, and the directions were good. I arrived at the Mt Pinos parking lot just a few minutes after sunset. There were several other observers there already set up, and a few others arrived later. It was a great night -- clear, dark, and cool, but no wind. Snow was on the ground around the edges of the lot. I stayed until around 2:30 AM, packed up, and was back to the motel around 5:00. An unexpected bonus night.
April 30, Saturday. I slept until around 10:00 and then drove over to the school. Reunion fun.
April 31, Sunday. I had brunch and hung out with a few old friends at the home of a classmate. Left at around 3:30 PM and drove home. Arrived Cupertino at about 10:30. Easy drive, but again, sub-optimal from an observing point-of-view. The weather was excellent, and I drove right by several of our local observing sites. As I drove past them, I thought that if I just stopped, I could have had another "free" night of observing (free in the sense of little or no extra driving). But something told me to keep driving. It was probably the best decision, because I was wiped out for the next several days, barely making it through the work day, nodding through dinner, and crashing early each night.
Well, it was an interesting and fun trip, although sub-optimal. Next year, I'll try TSP again. I won't have to plan in advance on leaving 2 days early (no need to go to a reunion not on a multiple of 5 years). And perhaps I won't bother to check the weather forecasts either.
Thanks to all of the people who offered support and information: the folks at Starizona, Bill Lofquist (VP of TAAA), Jamie Dillon, Ed Erbeck, Brian Skiff, and the "The Local Group" (Santa Clarita astronomy club).
Observing locations:
Posted on sf-bay-tac May 10, 2006 19:34:56 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.4 Jul 18, 2006 17:49:19 PT
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