The small size of Natural Bridges seems the problem with holding public events there. If we got the turn out of Bryce there would be no room for visitors. As I recall, the nearest hotel is a good distance, Blanding, as Robert mentioned. It is dark but can only accommodate small groups, and long distance for a weekend trip. The Rangers at Island in the Sky seemed peeved when SLAS took over the campground there.Did anyone mention the Grand Canyon Star Party to the Northern Arizona people. Not the one on the North Rim but the South Rim, they get a pretty good turn out there. --- robtaylor3661@comcast.net wrote: From: "Robert Taylor" <robtaylor3661@comcast.net> To: <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Natural Bridges Saturday Night Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2008 09:39:27 -0600 To add to Roger's summary at Natural Bridges last week-end: Around 7:00 pm on Saturday I joined the Rangers in their housing area for a BBQ in the park housing area and had a chance to talk to many of them. I was the sole representative of SLAS and found the Rangers very interested in Astronomy and answered a lot of their questions as best I could. They would love to have us back. The head Ranger (Scott Ryan) wants a SLAS hat. We talked about the Dark Sky designation, astronomy and telescopes in general for a while before I headed over to check out the star Party area. As expected we had a group of people who did not get the message that the Saturday Night Star Party had been cancelled. I went over to visitor center parking lot where the star party was sceduled to find a family sitting there waiting for the scopes. Not wanting to disappoint I set up my scope as the clouds were showing signs of thinning. The clouds soon opened up enough to give us a good view of the sky, first it was just Jupiter, and then it opened up in the Cygnus area, soon more and more opened up. We had about a 75% open sky from about 8:30pm to 10:15pm. Seeing the clearing skies other families came over from the camp site and joined our small but intimate group. Before long we had a good crowd, 15-20. We had a lot of fun and a handful of Rangers from Natural Bridges including a few that came up from Arizona joined the park visitors. They all asked lots of questions and had lots of requests and kept me quite busy, especially a couple of very enthusiastic young ladies who were fascinated with the sky. Even after clouds starting filling in all the gaps several of the rangers stayed for a while and continued to ask questions about SLAS doing star parties in Arizona and astronomy in general. They said they would love for SLAS to come down and visit them in Northern AZ. We had one couple drive out from Blanding just for the star party but unfortunately by the time they arrived even sucker holes were few and far between. I stayed and talked to them till about 11pm when they headed back and I packed up. Unfortunately no other SLAS members joined in on Saturday having all made their decisions early in the evening and made other plans. While the skies were open the seeing was fairly steady on Saturday and we had some excellent views. The skies at Natural bridges are very good. There are no bright spots on the horizon anywhere. While I was there I never saw an inky black sky, possible due to the lower altitude (5,300') and the front that was on the horizon but the viewing was very good. I went down on Thursday and had Thursday night to myself and had a wonderful night viewing and photographing. Thursday night's sky was not very steady but the transparency was excellent, not so great for photos but it settled down after midnight and I got some keepers. I stayed out till a little after 3am when the long drive finally caught up with me. Friday was a very good night for the star party with 6 scopes and a handful of SLAS members we stayed busy with the small but very interactive crowd. Quite fun and enjoyable. The park is smaller and more remote than either Bryce or Capital Reef, it's a National Monument as opposed to a park but it is part of the park service. The whole area is fascinating if you've never been down there. About a 325 mile drive from SLC so it's a trip. The nearest town is Blanding which is about 35-40 minutes away to the east. There are no services near the park so gas up and bring what you need, don't count on getting it there. This is something we should consider again for next year. _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://gallery.utahastronomy.com Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com