Houston Astronomical Society
TSP 2005
Webmasters TSP Adventures
by HAS Webmaster Bob Rogers
5/5/05
Well folks, as promised, I am able to make
updates from TSP (as long as the wireless is working here). I want to start
out by saying upon arrival, WOW!! What an experience this has been so far.
First of all, the scenery. With all the mountains and hills, you couldn't have
picked a better place for an astronomy vacation. Second, the astronomers and
their telescopes. I have never seen so many telescopes in one place like I
have seen here. I feel like I'm in a wonderful astronomers dreamland. And this
is just Monday. So let me go back to Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday, HAS members Ken Miller, Kent Francis, Susan Kennedy, Brett and
Quentin Maiwald, Michael and
Judy Dye and yours truly all caravanned from Houston to Ken Miller's Deer
lease in Ozona. Along the way, Ken's tire on his RV, decided it
didn't want to go the rest of the way to Ozona. While changing the tire, the
valve on the second tire decided that it was time to let the air out. So now
there were two tires that didn't want to go the rest of the way. During this
event, everyone was watching (supervising) the few people that were actually
helping Ken change his tire. To make a long story short, Ken was able to go
and get a new tire and get the valve stem replaced on the second. About an
hour later, everyone was back on the road to Ozona. After arriving, everyone
went to eat and we all came back and sat under the stars for a while until it
was time to go to sleep for the rest of the trip on Sunday.
On Sunday, everybody was back on the road to Ft. Stockton for breakfast. After
eating, we were just a couple of hours away from TSP. It was decided to drive
to Alpine first, then into Ft. Davis and TSP. We were just about five minutes
out of The Prude Ranch when we had our second delay. One of the members in the
caravan, and I won't mention any names (Michael) had to use the bathroom
rather quickly (obvious by the Duck Walk in the mirrors). It was decided to let him use my RV. After a couple of
minutes, I thought we could just lock the RV and go ahead and drive onto the
Prude Ranch with Michael inside, but we decided not to do this, considering he had been through enough as it was. When we finally got to
the Prude Ranch, we proceeded to park the RV's in the lower field and
then pick out our observing spots. The day had started out great with the
weather, but as the afternoon went on, the clouds started to roll in. Did we
do all this work setting up telescopes for nothing? Well, as the sun set the
clouds started to clear and it turned out to be clear. What a relief. I
observed until about 1:00 am and everyone else turned in around 3:00 in the
morning. Around midnight, we saw headlights coming down the road from the
middle field. After about ten minutes, an ambulance had arrived with
headlights and emergency lights flashing heading up to the middle field and
lighting up the whole Ranch. It turned out that somebody was walking somewhere
on the middle field and had fallen and hit their chest on a rock, causing the
person to have severe breathing problems. The person was taken to the hospital
in Ft. Davis. As soon as I hear about any updates, I will pass them along.
Well, here it is Monday with bright sunny skies, a good wind, and rather cold.
That's the good news. The bad news is, as I type this at 7:30 in the evening,
I am looking out my RV window at what could appear as a very dreary, cold,
winter day. It is very overcast and looks like it could rain at any time. I am
watching people walk around wearing heavy jackets and hooded sweatshirts, and
this is May in Texas! Everyone here is saying that there is a 50% chance of
rain for tonight and Tuesday. No observing tonight. This is a good chance to
watch DVD's, read a book, or like I'm doing, updating the web page and then
catching up on some sleep. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this, but today was
TSP Registration and after registering I purchased a great looking TSP T-shirt
that I will enjoy. Also, HAS member Ed Szczepanski
took Susan Kennedy and I on a sight seeing tour of the area. We all went up to
the McDonald Observatory Visitors Center and then on to a wonderful scenic
trip around the mountains that ended up back in Ft. Davis after a stop at
Pop's to eat a hamburger. That was one of the best tasting burgers that I have
had in a long time. The scenery was
great and the mountains are fantastic. Thank you Ed for a wonderful time. An
update on the Medical crisis from Sunday, the gentleman turned out to be OK.
He was taken to the hospital in Ft. Davis to be checked out.
More to come later.
Hello everyone from TCP (Texas Cloud Party). The weather here started out
cloudy this morning. I'm parked in the lower field and cannot see the
mountains that are in front of us because of the clouds. As the day went on,
the sucker holes started to appear. Things were looking promising for the
weather. Not much went on here today. A few more arrivals and a few more
departures. I saw Steve Goldberg today and his yearly beard growth is getting
a little longer. I was going to offer him my razor, but he declined saying
something about it being to much effort to shave. With all the clouds,
everyone is getting plenty of sleep, including myself. I went to bed around
9:30 Tuesday night and didn't get up until 8:00 this morning. I had heard
about the laser wars on the upper field that went on Tuesday evening. There
seemed to be some good competition going on until somebody shined a very
bright laser that put everyone else to shame. Needless to say, the bright
laser was declared the winner and everybody else gave up after that. Things
people do when the skies are overcast. The speaker for Tuesday evening was Dr.
Halton Arp. His topic was about "The Big Bang Theory and The Arp
Galaxies" The Meeting Hall was very packed to hear him speak. After his talk, I left to try
to do some observing and discovered the clouds were already moving in. Oh
well, another night of movies, Spirits and good fellowship at Ken Millers RV
and Pub.
5/5/05
After another good night of sleep, everyone awoke to the cloudy
skies again. I did hear talk about all the new telescopes on the fields, which
would explain all the cloudy skies. As I type this at noon on Wednesday, the
skies are starting to clear. One of my goals here at TSP is to go to the
McDonald observatory, so I have purchased a ticket and went on the tour. I
don't know how to describe the excitement that I had when we went into the
2.7m (107") Harlan J. Smith Telescope Observatory. That is the biggest
telescope that I have ever seen. Needless to say, I was impressed. The tour
guide was very knowledgeable about the telescope, its setup and functions. I
was amazed as to how quiet the telescope is when it was moved. I do wonder,
how long it will be before HAS member Larry Mitchell will own this one. The
next telescope on the tour was the 2.1m (82") Otto Struve Telescope. To walk
inside that dome and see the Battleship gray paint and that old smell to the
building was fantastic. It was interesting to find out that there are public
nights on the telescope and that us amateurs can actually use the telescope
for personal viewing. But again, I think about Larry Mitchell and what he
would observe thru this telescope. The last telescope on the tour, and the
most impressive is the 9.2m Hobby-Eberly Telescope. I have seen pictures in
the Astronomy magazines from many years back about (what was then), the new
segmented mirror designs, but to see it up close and personal was impressive.
One of the operators of the telescope took us into the dome and explained how
each mirror is controlled independently and how they all work together to
combine the light to a point. He also explained how the light that is gathered
is then routed thru fiber optic lines to the various equipment for studying.
Another impressive fact is that the telescope will rotate around on a cushion
of air when it needs to be moved. This is certainly a trip I won't ever
forget. It is nice that the McDonald staff would take the time out of their
bust schedules for a "behind the scenes" tour. A big Thank You to them. Of
course, the last stop is the Visitors Center where they try to get you to
spend your money, so I donated to the cause and bought a McDonald T-shirt.
When we all got back from the tour, the skies were looking very promising for
the evening. After a great Bar-B Que dinner at the dinning hall, it was off to
the telescopes to get prepared for an evening of viewing. Everyone was happy
to finally get some clear skies. After all, we were all very well
rested from the cloudy nights.
Thursday is
Hawaiian Shirt Day. With all the people at TSP wearing Hawaiian Shirts, our
little group decided that Michael Dye had to be the bravest man at TSP. Did
Judy dress him???
The evening started out nice until around
1:00 in the morning when the low clouds started to roll in again. There was
also a LOT of dew on everything. You could hear hairdryers everywhere around
us. Kind of felt like I was back at the Columbus Observing site again. I did
manage to get 15 objects observed from the TSP observing list. I decided it
was time to pack it in, which meant that the skies would clear. Sure enough,
that is exactly what happened. After getting up around 9:00 this morning, I
found out that the skies did cloud up about an hour later. I hope that the
clouds will stay away tonight so I can continue to work on the TSP list. I do
want to try to earn some TSP observing pins before I leave Saturday evening.
Well, enough for now. I will have more on my progress later on this same sky
channel.
Image by Randy Brewer
5/6/05
Good Morning everyone. Well, the day started out slow. Ken Miller, Susan
Kennedy and I went into Ft. Davis to the famous Drug Store to treat ourselves
to milkshakes. Brett and his son Quentin went on the McDonald tour today. They
said that they had a great time there. Brett drove me up to the Upper field
where I took some pictures of the field. Later in the day, after dinner,
everyone went to listen to Dr. Brent Archinal talk about the Huygens Probe to
Titan. His talk was very informative and interesting. After the lecture,
everybody stepped out to see what would become the TLP (Texas Lightning
Party). So it was decided that everybody in our group would gather around and
watch the lightning show. Ken Miller and Brett Maiwald got out their cameras
and took some great images of the show. There was also a great laser show on
the surrounding mountains from the people on the upper field. Around midnight,
the wind started to blow and the rain started to come down. There was a quick
run to all the trailers and tents where everybody retired for the night. The
forecast for tonight shows some improvement. Lets hope. More to come later.
5/7/05
Last night we were blessed with decent skies until about 2:00am. It was nice
to view the stars and watch the lightning off in the distance last night. One
of my other goals, that I wanted to do, was earn a TSP Observing pin. I'm glad
to say that I received the TSP Binocular Observing Club pin. I was
finally able to get 31 objects observed with all the bad weather that we have
been having. The list requires only 25 to earn the pin. I have just finished
packing the equipment up for our trip back. We will be leaving right after
lunch today. For my first time at TSP, I can say that this has been fun. The
scenery is great, the people are fun, and the viewing is wonderful. I will be
back next year. This will be the last update to the web page until Tuesday. I
have really enjoyed the trip.
5/10/05
Well, we left around 1:00 in the afternoon
on Saturday to go back home. Ken Miller decided that we should all stay at a
RV site in Kerrville. After arriving, it was off to the indoor pool and HOT
sauna. We spent the next hour relaxing and talking about our adventures at
TSP. After the indoor pool, Kent started up the grill and Ken cooked some
great steaks and baked potatoes that were given to him by the TSP cook. Around
11:00 pm, we all retired for an evening of good sleeping after a long day, or
so we thought.
At 6:00am, everyone was awakened (except Quentin) by the sound of hail and
thunder. Hail can be very loud hitting the roof of a trailer and how Quentin
slept thru this, I do not know. Everyone went back to sleep until 8:00 am.
After getting up and drinking some coffee with the rain, we left around 9:30
to head home. All the way back to Houston was very rainy. Did I say very
rainy? How about a downpour. The traffic was very, very slow. We also
encountered a couple of bad wrecks by people that were cutting in and out of
traffic. Some people just don't understand that when it rains this bad, to
slow down. Anyway, everybody seemed to make it home alright. For my first time
to pull a trailer, this was a Baptism by Rain.
I want to say Thank you to all those that made the trip to TSP possible for
me. I had a great time and lots of fun. I will cherish the memories until next
year when I go again for a refresher. For the astronomers that have never been
to TSP, make plans for 2006. You won't regret it at all.