Just plain yahoos with guns, the worst combination. We were at the Wedge Overlook (firearms are supposed to absent from there a BLM campground ) one time and one in our party got shot, luckily it was a small caliber and the bullet was lodged in his belt. They claimed accident but he was in plain view and they seemed to be taking pot shots, there are some very irresponsible gun owners out there.
Interesting report. When Jay, Daniel, a fellow we just met named Troy and
I were at Lakeside Friday night-Saturday morning, a truck was driving around nearby. I stopped my Jeep as it was driving out and I was driving in, and asked them who they were (a man and a woman, who somehow reminded me of mean hillbillies). Who are you, the guy demanded. I explained I thought they might be fellow astronomers. The guy said, Oh, that's what those people are doing. He drove off. When I got there Jay said the truck had been driving around and gunshots were going off, and the astronomers had blinked their headlights to let them know not to shoot in their direction. My guess is that the yahoos were hunting coyotes. I suspect that's who you saw, Michael. -- Joe
--- On Mon, 9/6/10, Michael Vanopstall <opstall@math.utah.edu> wrote:
From: Michael Vanopstall <opstall@math.utah.edu> Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Sunday/Monday -- good night! To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Monday, September 6, 2010, 7:13 AM Hello --
Indeed, I ended up at Lakeside, a little earlier than I had intended. It was windy for about the first hour, but nothing serious. After five hours out, I was cold, but no real complaints. About 3:00 someone in a truck kept driving up and down and shining a flashlight at me, and eventually drove over and shined his headlights. I think it must have been some kind of rangers.
Quite a productive night. Started by glancing around at naked-eye objects, went to looking at some binocular objects. Looked at M77 and M33 with the scope for old times' sake.
Then I got down to business. It took 1 1/2 hours for me to get my first three objects: the Cave nebula in Cepheus, the Bubble nebula in Cassiopeia, and the galaxy IC 1613 in Cetus.
It took 1 1/2 hours for me to get my next 2 objects, the galaxies NGC 2635 and NGC 1961 in Camelopardalis. Combination of bad aiming to start, and difficulty navigating near the pole. NGC 1961 was much easier than I had expected.
Then the last 2 hours was more frenetic. I picked up all the Herschels in Gemini and all the Herschels in Orion, to bring my total to 275. Splitting NGC2371/2372 was probably the biggest challenge here.
Closed with Hubble's variable nebula in Monoceros, which finishes the Caldwells for me down to 73. With some horizon scraping, I think getting down to 80 is possible, maybe from Southern Utah. But for now, I took the book out of my bag and put it back on the shelf.
Nice night, but no wildlife...
---- Rev. Michael A. van Opstall Department of Mathematics, University of Utah Office: JWB 313 opstall@math.utah.edu
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