I'd like to thank Robert and anyone else who made the trek to GBNP. I am very sorry that family concerns kept me away, after all. While the weather wasn't very cooperative, I feel bad mostly about not having been able to make an evening presentation, as I had planned. I hope I can arrange something for later this summer, even if it may not be a formal SLAS event. If anyone is interested (July, perhaps?) please keep in touch. Kim _____ From: Robert Taylor [mailto:robtaylor3661@comcast.net] Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2006 10:39 AM To: Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Cc: bolide@sisna.com; kimharch@cut.net Subject: Great Basin Friday Night I made the trip down there Friday despite the marginal weather. I was as much interested in seeing the park as I was the sky. Great Basin was established as a National Park in 1986 so it is a very new park and does not have the history and facilities of some of the other parks like Bryce Canyon. For example there are no great lodges. It also doesn't have the attendance levels that many of the other National Parks have. Roberta Moore was the ranger heading up the program and I believe she was working with Kim Hyatt to set this up. Unfortunately Kim couldn't make it due to a family illness from what I understand. I caught up with Roberta and met her at the Visitor Center where the talk would be and where the scopes would be set up. I was the only member from SLAS at the presentation and aside from a few other Rangers lending moral support there was only one couple from Bountiful in attendance at the presentation. The scheduled speaker cancelled in the afternoon so Roberta stepped in and did the presentation for the night and covered what they were hoping the program would become as well as light pollution (a topic near and dear to most of us), the park's very dark skies and more. The sky at the time of the presentation was quite cloudy and I had serious doubts as to whether there would be any observing that night. Roberta said it was not uncommon for the clouds to dissipate after sunset; the park makes its own weather. A few other SLAS members showed up after the presentation, my scope was the only one set up on Friday night. The clouds starting breaking up after the presentation so we waited to see how far this would go. The clouds cleared to about 90% clear after an hour or so and by 10PM (Pacific) we had fairly clear skies with a steady strong wind that caused problems with my 16" Dob all night. We did manage to hit a few showpiece objects for the small crowd and other Park Rangers despite having to brace the scope against the wind. We had a few other park attendees show up after we started and we managed to do OK for the night all things considered. I spent Saturday in the park. The temperatures dropped dramatically on Saturday as winter returned to the park. It snowed down to the 6500' - 7000' level, rained at lower levels. I decided to head back on Saturday. A few (2) more SLAS members showed up on Saturday from what I could see and I left it to them to help with the presentation Saturday night. I hope we continue to support this burgeoning program. I'm sure the weather was a factor in the low turn-out of SLAS members and park visitors. The visitor center was not the best place to set up telescopes but with all the considerations you have to account for in a public star party it probably made sense as a starting point. I'd love to get a scope up to some of the overlooks in the park that have a much higher elevation and are farther away from the lights (including a brand new Budweiser Sign from a nearby pub) of the town of Baker which serves the park. We talked about this as a possibility for the future with Roberta. Parking at the overlook is limited but with the current small groups it might be possible, at least until their program catches on. It was hard to tell how dark the skies at the park could get but from what we saw Friday I think they should rival or maybe even surpass Bryce Canyon if we can get up to some of the higher elevations and away from the town. Robert Taylor ______________________________________________________________________ This e-mail has been scanned by Cut.Net Managed Email Content Service, using Skeptic(tm) technology powered by MessageLabs. For more information on Cut.Nets Content Service, visit http://www.cut.net ______________________________________________________________________