ICC 443 in Gemini*
Lime and limpid green, a second scene
Now fights between the blue you once knew
Floating down, the sound resounds
Around the icy waters underground
Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda and Titania
Neptune, Titan, stars can frighten
Blinding signs flap,
Flicker, flicker, flicker blam, pow, pow
Stairway scare, Dan Dare, who’s there?
Lime and limpid green, the sounds around
The icy waters under
Lime and limpid green, the sounds around
The icy waters underground
– Syd Barrett
Doug’s
Some of my favourite desert memories are trips my son and I took with the Desert Mountaineer and a cat known in some circles as L.A. Dave. Normally when I go into the desert it’s for climbing purposes. I mean, really why else would one want to do it?
Well… there is another reason. Yes, of course, you guessed it. Astrophysics. Okay… maybe it was astronomy; but that’s just only one step away. And there was tequila involved so maybe it was Astrometaphysics. A lot of fun regardless of what you call it.
The Arizona desert is of course a wonderful area for this. Clear sky, low light pollution, still air, and the spirit of Carlito and Don Juan all contribute to the viewing and the experience. There is a reason that there are world class observatories here. (Well… maybe not the Carlos – Don Juan reason)
Star Camp
We would convoy out to some wild and secluded spots and set up camp. Since this was car-camping there was no shortage of comforts; good food, drink, and music.
Early evenings would start with a fire (but that would soon need to be extinguished so as not to interfere with viewing), dinner, and some pints. Once the first known stars began to appear Dave would ‘locate’ his telescope so that it would ‘know’ its location in the cosmos. That way the computer that controlled the drives could automatically point the scope at any celestial object that was keyed into the computer. This was done by a sort of triangulation using the positions of two widely separated known stars and our terrestrial lat / long.
So with the device centered in the universe and the fire extinguished, we would settle into a long night of tequila, music, and stargazing. For those of you who haven’t spent a night out under the stars in the desert… you are missing something that belies words to describe.
I can’t recall a list of everything we ever saw on these trips, but for sure we saw various nebulae, star clusters, binary stars, Jupiter, and Saturn and it’s rings. But by far the coolest thing (probably literally) yet, the most mundane looking was Pluto. Not an easy ‘planet’ to spot by amateur astronomers, but Dave was up to the task. One needs a very good and detailed star chart of the region that Pluto is passing through, and one needs to observe it throughout the evening to ascertain relative movement to the background, and this is exactly what we did.
Pluto Facts…
First postulated in the 1840’s
Discovered: Feb 08 1930
Satellites: 5
Diameter: 2,376.6 +/- 1.6 km
Mean Surface Temp.: 44k
Distance from earth: 4.3 – 7.5 Billion km
Orbital Period: 248 yrs
Poor ol’ planet Pluto now
He never stood a chance no how
When he got uninvited to
The interplanetary dance
Once a mighty planet there
Now just an ordinary star
Hangin’ out in Hollywood
In some ol’ funky sushi bar
– John Prine
These were fantastic and surreal opportunities that will live on in my memory forever. Dave (a crackerjack climber in his own right) eventually went on to exciting things in professional astronomy. You can check out his very cool stuff over at Starimager
Doug, Doug, & Dave
Have you seen the stars tonight?
Would you like to go up on A-deck and look at them with me?
Have you seen the stars tonight?
Would you like to go up for a stroll and keep me company?
Did you know
We could go
We are free
Any place
You can think of
We can be
Have you seen the stars tonight?
Have you looked at all of the galaxy of stars?
– Kanter / Crosby
* photo courtesy of Dave Jurasevich | Starimager.com
Arizona Observatories:
San Pedro Valley Observatory
Lowell Observatory**
U.S. Naval Observatory
Discovery Channel Telescope
ARO 12m Radio Telescope
Kitt Peak National Observatories
Mayall 4M Telescope
McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope
MDM Observatory
Steward Observatory
Warner & Swasey Observatory
WIYN 0.9m Observatory
WIYN 3.5m Observatory
Large Binocular Telescope
Mt. Graham International Observatories
Submillimeter Telescope
Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope
Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatories
HATNnet
MEarth Project
MMT Observatory
Veritas Array
Mount Lemmon Observatory
Apache-Sitgreaves Observatory
Prescott Observatory
Gov. Aker Observatory
Patterson Observatory
Winer Observatory
Grasslands & Sabino Canyon Observatory
Jim Louden Observatory
National Optical Astronomy Observatory
** The observatory where Pluto was discovered.