Mark, Do you blame the bear! He looked in the window and got one look at you and licked his chops! ;^) Rodger -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Mark Shelton Sent: Friday, July 27, 2012 1:56 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Astronomy Fun and Adventure Hi all, I just came back from spending 2 weeks in the mountains of central utah. My wife and I had a very interesting time in the mountains. I tried my hand at astrophotography for the first time and boy was that a learning and experimenting time. I will be spending some time with photo shop with the photographs and then if I am brave I will let the list look as some of them. The big story was the BEAR. Wednesday night we were at a lake taking shots of the milky way and backdrop. We came back to camp at 12 midnight. My wife went to bed in our trailer (27 Foot Jayco important to the story) I proceded to take some star trails of the night sky from our camp. This lasted until 1am when I called it a night. Got in bed and that was it for the night. Never heard a thing all night. (C-PAP MACHINE) We work up in the morning and looked up at the vert over our bead and noticed it was broken. I was hoping for a meteorite or something interesting like that but such was not the case. I went out side and some of our stuff had been thrown around. Well, I started to look at things a bit closer and right under the vent in the kitchen area on the outside were some Bear prints going up the side of the trailer. They were muddy and very plain to see. That was a shock. Then I went around the back of my trailer and could see bear prints going from the spare tire up the side of the trailer and onto the roof. On the roof there are claw marks, holes in the roof and a torn in half hood vent. To make a long story short we had a bear trying to get in our trailer for a late night snack. The DWR came out with a state trapper and set up a bear trap in our camp space. WE WERE ASKED TO LEAVE AND CAMP SOMEWHERE ELSE. I wanted to STAY and see if we were going to catch a bear. I just could not talk my wife into staying another night (go Figure) The DWR estimate the bear at around 400 POUNDS. and full grown. Paw prints measured about 4.5 inches across at the palm. We have lots of photo's of the entire event. Astrophotography was a blast. Cant say that about the BEAR. Mark Mark Shelton Indian Hill Middle School Tech Ed. Teacher Salt Lake Astronomical Society Board Member (School and Special Star Parties Coordinator) _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. To unsubscribe go to: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".