What I did last weekend

[cjsmith]

I went to a star party, enjoyed a view of Half Dome, helped some kids (and adults) look through a telescope, made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, watched the Perseids, and chased off a bear.

Next time: even MORE warm clothes.
Next time: some electric way to heat water (camp stoves emit visible light) or several Thermoses.

Comments

[ladycelia.livejournal.com]

Wow, that sounds like fun!
Remind me to tell you my sisters bear story some time.

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

I am in complete and utter envy. I haven't been to a star party since my teens. But we were able to do it around Crystal Springs as there was not as much light pollution then.

I spent about an hour out on my deck Sunday evening and was able to catch about three really good bright ones and think I caught a few fainter ones. I also watched one satellite go from the northwest to the southeast until it went into earth shadow.

[platypus]

Yay!

It feels a bit silly bundling up on a summer night, but no matter where you are, it gets cold stargazing at 3am! Especially lying close to the ground.

How was your Perseid rate? People seem to be reporting a little lower than they'd have expected under the conditions. I lost count early on; we certainly saw more than a hundred, maybe even more than 150, but we were out for four hours (though it didn't *feel* like four hours). And quite a lot of them were short or dim. Some of the best, brightest ones were sporadics. I'm happy with any meteors at all, and I've only seen the Milky Way a handful of times in my life, so I was happy enough. I didn't bring my telescope, not wanting to be distracted from general gazing for long, but even through 10x binoculars the Andromeda galaxy and the Perseus double cluster and such were gorgeous.

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

It was pretty sporadic, but there was one minute when I saw seven in a row.

We were enjoying looking at Andromeda and the double cluster with our 18x50 binocs, too. I'd never seen the double cluster before, and had never seen Andromeda other than in a photo.

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

Yep, I'm going to have to do that again some day. We went to one in Death Valley at New Years. I don't own a scope, there is nothing to see in the middle of Silicon Valley, and I go to a great star party may be once every 10 years. So why own a scope? But I love going to parties and enjoying everyone else's.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Go for it!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

This was the first one we'd ever attended. Except for the instant jet lag, I'd happily do it over and over.

Sunday evening we saw the Hubble space telescope go from the south across to the west, so that one's not the same one you saw. Cool!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I get cold very easily, especially when I'm not moving or when I'm really sleepy. I had thermal underwear, a T-shirt, a sweatshirt, and a big down parka; I had a hat, the hood of the sweatshirt, and the hood of the parka; I had mittens; I had three layers on my legs. I was shivering. I think my strategy in future will have to include those little chemical hand-warmer things.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I bet it's just as fun to wander around and look through scopes as it is to stand still and show 100 people the Ring Nebula. Death Valley must be a wonderful place to stargaze!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I was stunned that we could make out Andromeda with just our eyeglasses. Faint, but definitely there. WOW. I think that's a big part of what makes me want to go back. That stuff is REALLY THERE! It's not just the camera making things up!

[ladycelia.livejournal.com]

My sister and her family live up in Weaverville, a lumber town about halfway between Redding and Eureka. It's pretty rural.
Well, a few weeks back, she and her husband are awakened at about 2:30 in the morning by the sound of splintering wood. The dogs are going nuts, and the tearing wood sound is pretty loud. She gets up (her husband is disabled, and somewhat slower off the mark than she is), looks outside, and sees a very large bear ripping the back of her chicken coop apart. This is not some flimsy slapdash plywood structure--this is a winter-hardy cedar planked permanent structure. Now she's already lost a number of birds to a resident coyote with a taste for chicken, so this makes her angry. Plus, if the bear is hungry and aggressive enough to rip open the coop, no telling if he'll go after the house next. So she hollers at her husband to get their sons gun. But he can only find the .22. Shooting a bear with a .22 is only going to piss it off. But apparently between the shouting, the barking dogs, and the potshots from the .22, the bear had enough and took off. He destroyed a total of 6 chicken coops that night and my sister was the only person who didn't lose all her birds. She said that most of them were crammed in tight up near a vent in the ceiling, shaken up, but alive. Couple of dead ones, and one poor thing had a reverse mohawk down the length of her body where she's just gotten away but lost an awful lot of feathers.
Later, that bear or another one also took two pigs from a neighbor. Fish and Game had to kill two large bears in the area that were tearing into buildings and killing livestock. It's been a tough year, food-wise, so the critters are coming a lot closer to people than they normally would.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Holy moly. Glad she woke up. I wouldn't be surprised if the bear that got into the chicken coops was one that had to be killed by Fish and Game. Once they get too comfortable coming around people...

I admit to wishing I had a rubber-pellet gun when I was at the star party. Park rangers use those to try to get bears to be uncomfortable coming around people. I feel for her -- she's hungry, and if I were hungry I'd be awfully tempted to steal food -- but she's already way too habituated and Park Service will probably eventually have to kill her.

[ladycelia.livejournal.com]

Oh, one of the bears that got killed was definitely the one that had torn up the coop--they matched it to the tracks. The other one was the one that had taken the pigs.
Fish and Game told my sister that they've had to shoot an extraordinary number of bears this year because of aggression brought on by lack of food.
Another time, Ellen and her husband were driving home and a bear getting ready for winter came galumphing down a hillside right in front of their car. They couldn't stop and went right over it. They were driving a small SUV. The bears back was car hood height. My sister was in shock (it was a brand new car and she's just run completely OVER a bear), so she got out of the car. Bear stood up, shook itself, and went galumphing down the slope.
Bears are crazy-tough.

star-struck...

[justetthon.livejournal.com]

I think your adventure sounds awesome. The closest thing I've ever gotten to this kind of thing (being an Easterner city-slicker, basically) was when I drove from the Grand Canyon back to LA with LK and her mother in the car. I drove happily along, and saw moonshadows for the first time (are you humming Cat Stevens' "Moonshadows" about now?). LK was hoping that the stars would be out that night, since I've never really experienced a dark, clean sky to see the stars as they should be seen, but with the moon out in full glory, the shadows were awesome as well. I was amazed and entertained myself the whole way across, on Rt 66 or some such highway, by watching the shadows change. We also saw the thunderstorms forming WAAAYYYY in the distance, visibility was that good and unobstructed. Definitely not something I'm used to, being from the suburbs of Washington DC all my life and basically still live within about 20 miles of where I grew up.

I wouldn't mind doing the star-gazing thing at Yosemite and I know LK would do it, too. Are these organized "events" or do you just go on some night of your choosing? If it is organized, how does one find out about it?

Re: star-struck...

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

We had a new moon, so we could just baaaarely make out shadows from the Milky Way. I was amazed at how well we could walk around the area (rough ground, stuff strewn everywhere) by the light of the stars alone.

They're organized events, and I'm not at all sure how one finds out about it unless one is already in the park looking around. Yosemite invites various astronomical groups up there quite frequently. We went as members of the Peninsula Astronomical Society, which was the group going up that particular weekend. I did find this schedule on line; I don't know if it's complete.

OT - aviation books

[genderfur.livejournal.com]

Hi - I don't have any private contact information for you, but I thought you might like to know about this. A co-worker where I'm contracting is selling off a lot of aviation books. If you're interested in knowing more, please reply to this with some private contact info and I'll get you two in touch.

An excerpt from his email:

- Archer II Information Manual
- Cessna Pilot Safety and Warning Supplements
- Cessna 1978 Skyhawk 172N POH
- Cessna 1980 Skylane 182Q Information Manual

...and several thousand dollars' worth of aeronautics science & aviation technical manuals.

Re: OT - aviation books

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ooo, y'know who might be interested is rfrench (my partner, a flight instructor). We may not wind up taking much -- both of us have extensive aviation libraries already -- but there might indeed be some we're looking for. I'd like to see the list. Both my and Rob's LiveJournal e-mail addresses work fine to reach us.