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Terry Wood

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At Glacier Point

Started by flusk, 08/04/2003 05:09AM
Posted 08/04/2003 05:09AM Opening Post
The September issue of Astronomy magazine has a very nice article about the summer star parties at Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park. The photos on Pages 98 and 99 are from the weekend last year when my club (Central Valley Astronomers, Fresno, CA) was there. I'm the guy in the red sweatshirt in the left-middle photo on Page 98. My scope is a Celestron C5+. I'm showing a very nice lady some hikers on Mt Hoffman, 8.9 miles away--excuse me, 1.5*10^-12 light-years away. Many of my fellow club members and their scopes are scattered around the panorama and the bottom photo.

Now that I am famous, I expect to be treated better :-)

BTW, we just got back from Glacier Point this afternoon.
Usually the weather is perfect this time of year, but we were greated with clouds and intermittent rain. We had a lot of no-shows, but those of us who did turn out had a great time in spite of the weather. (Even if the weather is bad and you can't observe, why would anyone turn down a weekend of free camping in Yosemite? I can't explain it.) Friday night was 100% cloud cover, but several of us set up scopes before dark and showed a few tourists Half Dome, Nevada Fall, etc. Saturday was a bit better, though clouds limited early evening viewing to the crescent moon and a few double stars and bright Messiers. Later it cleared up in spectacular fashion, but dew become a problem, which is rare at Glacier Point. Mars was awesome, when the clouds parted, and the Milky Way was very bright. Not how we planned it, but successful anyway.

Fred