One of my favorite images from the trip. We had a tremendous amount of wind on Thursday, March 26, which raised a lot of dust and resulted in gorgeous sunset displays like this one.
I left KC on Monday morning about 9:00 am and reached Amarillo, Texas my first night. I stayed at the Oasis RV Resort, which had a half-price special of $17 for the night. Chris was terrific, staying late at the club house until I arrived (about 9:20 pm). This was the nicest RV camp ground I stayed at during the trip.
This is the Flagstaff KOA, where I spent Tuesday night. Elly and I stayed there seven years ago on our trip to the Grand Canyon. We had planned to stay in a state park, but they were all closed because of forest fires. The skies are so dark from Flagstaff, because of lighting ordinances, it is a treat to observe even from town. All cities should have the same lighting ordinances!
I arrived at Dick Harshaw's house on Wednesday at noon. I ordered a scope cover from Astro Systems on Monday while driving south on I-35. (Nothing like waiting until the last minute!) I chose second day shipping for delivery at Dick's house in Phoenix. It had not arrived when I got there, so we went out back to look at Dick's observatory -- a customized Tuff Shed!
Dick's PierTech telescope pier is shown in this picture. It is required to keep the height of the observatory below the privacy fence -- a subdivision requirement. The pier can be raised and lowered without changing the scope's polar alignment.
This is a lemon tree in the backyard of Dick's neighbor, who shares lemons. Dick gave me a bag of them. He is planting orange trees in his own back yard. Pretty amazing to a KC native!
After looking over the observatory, we checked the tracking number for the scope cover package on the UPS website, which reported that the package had already been delivered. Sure enough, the box was sitting on Dick's front porch! It came while we were in the back looking at the observatory. :-)
Here is my 22-inch Dob set up at the Antennas observing site, 90 miles west of Phoenix in the Sonoran desert. This picture was taken Wednesday afternoon, March 25.
The Arizona skies are fabulous but the cloud cover and wind projections for Wednesday and Thursday nights were not great. As it turned out, we were able to observe all four nights but did have to contend with seeing issues and clouds. We still had a great time and did lots of top notch observing. Here is our campsite, Thursday morning, March 26. Joe and Pat Goss did not arrive until around 5:00 PM Thursday. The Astro Systems scope cover (to protect the scope from dust!) fit perfectly.
Camp breakfast, Dick style. Note the clever use of a piece of 6-inch HVAC snap pipe around the burner as a wind shield. (Definitely necessary!)
Camp breakfast, Fiske style. No wind shield required. However, Dick's Element gets FAR better gas mileage than my 22-foot RV!
A creosote bush, according to Dick, my local tour guide. :-)
Sage. This was everywhere. And it was delightful.
A Palo Verde tree in the foreground. In the background can be seen the antennas, from which the site derives its name.
A close up of another palo verde tree. Every part of the tree is green, contributing to photo synthesis. I'm not sure what the little orange buttons on this one are -- some sort of bud or flower? I didn't see these on all the palo verde trees. The green spikes are the tree's leaves!
A white flower I haven't identified yet. (I never get tired of taking pictures of flowers. Lots more ahead!) This was a beautiful time of year to visit the Sonora. Moisture and cool temps lead to an explosion of spring blooms. The Sonora is unusual in that it never freezes and gets sufficient rain (for a desert) to support lots of plant life. The Antennas site is too hot for observing after April, so it is only used for astronomy in the winter and early spring months.
The yellowest lichen I have ever seen. I spotted this from 50 yards away. At least.
Some pretty orange lichen keeping the yellow stuff company.
A close up of the yellow lichen. I really want to learn more about this stuff. Very interesting.
Here is a long view of the site, taken during the day on Friday, March 27. Joe and Pat Goss's 32-foot class-A Allegro is on the left. (Talk about traveling in style!)
Some sort of cactus with an interesting red growth.
Unidentified (as yet) purple desert flower.
These butterflies were all over the place. Zillions of them. Steve Kennedy commented on them when he arrived on Saturday.
Unidientified yellow flowers. (As I promised -- lots of flower pictures.)
The wind got so bad Thursday afternoon that even though I had set the scope to weathervane -- letting it swing in the wind to keep the smallest possible profile -- at one point it nearly flipped. And I DID flip. I hustled over to it and started trying to figure out how to use bungee cords to strap the cover down more tightly, lowering its wind resistance. After a few futile minutes of this, it occurred to me that a 5-ton wind break on wheels was sitting 20 feet away. I pulled the RV in close to the scope, which solved the problem. Thank goodness!
Horned toad.
Some sort of cool-looking lizard. It was about 16-inches long. Most of the taller shrubs and trees had lizard burrows around them.
This picture was taken Friday evening. From left to right, Joe Goss, Darrell Spencer, Dick Harshaw, Chris Hanrahan, and a friend of Chris' from work who is just getting into astronomy. His first name is Derrick, but I don't remember his last name. Anyway, as good a bunch of observing companions as any amateur astronomer could wish for!
Yellow cactus blossom.
Buds from the same cactus.
Really liked this cactus...
Joe and Pat Goss going for a walk Saturday morning. Pat gets my vote for astronomy wife of the year. One night she even sat out with Joe on a lawn-chair, covered up with blankets to keep warm.
Close-up of a Saguaro cactus, demonstrating why tree-hugging isn't extended to this sort of plant! There were hundreds of Saguaro cacti around the site, many of them 100 years old or more. Dick told me it takes at least 50 years before they start growing arms.
I had hoped to do some birding out west, but only identified three species I hadn't seen before. This bird, a Gambrel's Quail, was one of them. I also saw Stellar's Jays (at the KOA Flagstaff campground) and black-throated sparrows (very pretty birds) at the Antennas site.
A tiny, but beautiful purple flower.
Joe recharges his battery with a solar panel. This is his C-14. Joe is a dedicated LTG (Little Turd Galaxy) hunter. He has observed more than 800 galaxies in Virgo alone.
This is an interesting tree I nick-named the "candy corn" tree. Not sure what its official name is. Identifying it, along with all the other plants I saw that Dick didn't identify is on my to-do list.
A candy corn tree closeup showing why I thought of the name.
Dick and Darrell both told me that these are Chola cacti. I got the impression there are lots of different sorts of Chola cacti. Dick and I were pondering whether they might spread by little branches being blown off, as shown in this picture.
Purple cactus blossom. Chola?
After having the bright idea to use the RV for a wind break, I also realized it would make a nice scope cooler too! I kept the scope out of the sun from 1:00 pm on, lowering the awning and moving the RV out of the way each evening. It worked perfectly -- the scope didn't need any cool down time and was ready to go as soon as it got dark.
This picture was taken Saturday evening by Pat Goss. From left to right, Steve Kennedy (optician extraordinaire!), Moi, Chris Hanrahan, Joe Goss, and Dick Harshaw.
Set up and ready to go Saturday evening.
A lovely crescent moon high in the west.
Dick, Chris, and I had brunch at a family diner in Tonopa, AZ on our way back from the Antennas site, and then I headed east on I-10, staying overnight in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where, unaccountably, I did NOT take a picture of the Coach Light Motel and RV park. I drove through the White Sands Missil Range on Monday (they weren't firing any off, thank goodness!) and stopped at the White Sands national monument, which I last visited at the age of four.
I didn't slide down any sand dunes on this visit, contenting myself with a few pictures.
Really an amazing place!
This is the Clinton/Elk City KOA on I-40 a few hours west of Oklahoma City where I spent Monday night. Notice the red dirt in the background. I got home on Tuesday evening about 7:00. Round trip: 3,029 miles.
