Hi Ann, The more I think about it the more I think I'm with you on this one. Our resident meteorologist tells me the winds are normal being the site is at the base of a canyon (FWIW he says the winds blow up the canyon during the day). It was too cold for me. And the dearth of public surprised me. But things should warm up as the season progresses and hopefully the word will get out and the public will come. I was a bit surprised by the light pollution. I knew there would be some but (perhaps naively) hoped it would be less. It just seems kind of odd that we'd have a Harmons star party followed by TITP. Perhaps future season can have Harmons and TITP alternate on Fridays followed by SPOC on Saturday. I could see the place being used for Sun parties. The view was incredible and the guy from the park says a typical Saturday during the summer has about 7,000 people visiting the park. Still, like Erik posted, this year is just a test for TITP and folks need to let the SLAS board know how they feel. Clear skies! patrick On 14 Apr 2008, at 08:31, Ann Blanchard wrote:
I wondered what impressions any of you had of star gazing from This is the Place? Craig and I went out Saturday and there was a large turn out of folks with scopes. There is a broad view to the west and they let us drive our cars right up to where we were viewing so we didn't have to haul things. I have to say first that I am a wimp about cold, so my view may not fit with others, but the wind blew all the time, and by 10:00 the two flags they had were waving at full tilt with the metal banging desperately into the polls. I was freezing, nose running constantly and my eyes watered from the wind so much I could hardly look through the scopes. I remembered that we had tried viewing once from Research Park and the wind in July made it uncomfortable, so I asked the very friendly volunteer from This is the Place if it was always windy like this and he cheerfully replied that it was. I had fun with the people there, but I really have no desire to go back again. Just curious what others thought.