Yes, they are ant hills.  You can see them in many parts of the west. ________________________________ From: Josh <mountaindrifter@gmail.com> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2011 9:20 PM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Rush Valley & Pit n' Pole the same? They are all the same place as far as I know.  The only one I have a question on is the first one.  It may be a little further down the road than the other too.  The monument that is displayed on that map is a little past the turn off for the pit'n pole.  As for the image you snapped I'm almost certain that those are ant colonies.  I've spent some time out in rush valley during the day a little farther down the pit'n pole turn off.  They are all over the place, and fairly big.  Most are at least a meter across and some are close to 3. On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 8:44 PM, Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> wrote:

Looking on the SLAS website in the "Star Party Maps" section I see one listing for "Rush Valley" which takes me here:

http://slas.us/maps/RVALLEY.HTM

And another for "Pit 'n Pole" which takes me here:

http://slas.us/maps/Pit%20%27n%20Pole.htm and a map pointing here:

http://www.slas.us/images/maps/PitnPole.jpg

Are they (Pit 'n Pole and Rush Valley) the same place?  If they are should one of the two links be eliminated?

Speaking of that part of the world, I was flying over it the other day and saw something I've always wondered about and got this picture:

http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/whatsthis.jpg

I see them all over the place.

What are all those light colored dots?

Clear skies,

patrick _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php

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Yes, they are ant hills. You can see them in many parts of the west. Brent, cute story about your daughter. Our son, at about age 4, got into some fire ants, and got bit often, before we could get to him. Was not a happy camper. My father was an alfalfa farmer and, of course did not like ants as they could eat a circle several feet wide such as those off the Pony Express. He got a poison from the county agent which completely exterminated the colony. Was kinda sad to watch. You would liberally sprinkle the dust over the entrances to the hill. The ants would realize they were in danger and just go frantically to and fro. Some would go down into the hill and bring out the eggs--preparing to move to another location. They just died there, and since the eggs had been brought to the surface, that colony ceased to exist. But, each spring, it seemed there was always a new supply of ants. ________________________________ ______ _______________________________________________ ________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php