The Longest Tuesday Ever!

The saga of the visiting Russian amateur astronomers continued today.  This morning the youngsters were invited to attend an American high school.  This was not a normal school, but a local charter school that enjoys a #1 national ranking!  Truth be told, I had not even heard about Basis Tucson North, since it is quite a distance from our house, and the school is literally brand new, this being the first year at this location.  But I heard about it from one of my co-workers, who introduced me to the principal, Julia, who jumped at the chance to host our Russian students.  A model of diversity, Julia was even able to find students the same age of all the students, most of them speaking Russian to help ease the transition for our visitors!  They all were able to visit a wide variety of classes, from Latin (for 5th and 6th graders!), Biology, Physics, Spanish, and English.  Interestingly, after seeing the tarantula on our hike last night, one of the teachers brought one in to Biology and the class was able to pet it!  Unfortunately, I did not bring my camera into the school, so didn't get any photos, but the kids took some, so the folks at home will hear about their adventures.  I think they all made a few friends, and I THINK I volunteered to help with setting up telescopes should they ever try to schedule a star party... 

Meanwhile,Sergey and I had some time on our hands, so we hit the road to do some errands.  We went to the Pima Air Museum to check out some souvenirs that the kids want.  Sergey had been looking for jackets with insignias from the Air Force or NASA, but the best candidate was a little too small for him!  We also went to a local astronomy store and the largest shopping mall in Tucson, scouting possibilities to bring the kids later.

We needed to leave for our evening observing program at the Mount Lemmon Sky Center by 2:30, so returned to the school early.  Julia gave us a walking tour of the school and met a number of the teachers and students.  We finally left, picking up Chuck Schroll, who is our tour guide tomorrow for the Pima Air Museum.  A long-time astronomy volunteer with us at the Grand Canyon Star Party, he was interested in the Mount Lemmon observing...  We stopped at one of the overlooks, Geology Vista, to let the kids stretch their legs and admire the view of the mountain ranges in the area.  I was able to get a group shot and a shot of one of the girls who found an uncomfortable perch to review her images...

 

Running a little late, we got to the top of the observatory just as the gate was opened for the limited entry.  We went straight to the telescope to demonstrate we could spot stars in the sky other than the sun when our tour guide Keith Schlottman pointed the telescope to Deneb.  After some orientation at the .8 meter (32" diameter), we also eventually spotted the Sun through a H-Alpha filtered telescope before heading down to the classroom.  We enjoyed a nice dinner while Keith gave a presentation on various aspects of astronomy using spectacular images obtained with the facility's telescope.

 

Dinner was interrupted to get out and watch another beautiful sunset (sunset waits for no one).  Walking a short distance (150 meters) to the west, we had a great view of the western horizon.  Keith pointed out a number of interesting things to observe, including our own shadows, cast against a nearby telescope dome.  Our shadows were a strong blue color, caused by light from the blue sky filling into our solar silhouettes.

 

After a return to finish our dinners, we finally headed up for 90 minutes or so of observing in a dark sky.  The dome was pretty crowded early, so I set up my camera to take a few short (30 seconds) tripod pics of the sky.  The following 2 images are with a 14mm wide angle lens on my Canon.  At left is an exterior shot of the dome, red light flooding out of the entrance, with the Big Dipper just above the trees, Polaris and the Little Dipper at upper right.  Our buddy Chuck mostly held still for the exposure at lower right.  After ducking in a couple times to look through the telescope, the crowd stepped outside to do some binocular observing.  I took the opportunity to take a portrait of the telescope without a moving crowd of observers around the eyepiece.  Here at right, Sergey is looking at the Triffid Nebula, holding perfectly still for the 30 second exposure.

 

After a great presentation, the observing ended all too soon and by 9:30 we were headed down the Mountain.  After the 25 mile drive down the hill and another 15 miles across Tucson, our visitors got back to their rooms about 10:30.  Since I picked them up at 7:15 am, it had been a VERY long say (15 hours!).  The plan is to sleep in a little late - I'm picking them up at 10am tomorrow for pancakes, then head over the the Pima Air and Space Museum, and the Titan Missile Museum, for a shorter day of aviation tours.  With Chuck's company, it should be fun!

A Tuesday Update On Our Visiting Guests!

This post is for the parents of the children visiting from Krasnoyarsk - from Melinda, Dean's wife.

Dean, Sergey, and the children are having a busy day!  I spoke with Dean about an hour ago, as they were on their way to the Mt. Lemmon Sky Center.  He said the children had a fun day at the high school, and that it is quite a remarkable school!  He and Sergey had a tour of the school this morning, when they took the children there, and he has a few pictures to post later.  They picked the children up from school at 2:00pm (1400) and they stopped to pick up snacks before heading up the mountain.  They also have Dr. Chuck Schroll joining them this evening.  He will also be giving them a tour of the Pima Air and Space Museum tomorrow.  Chuck is a close friend of ours, an Emergency Room Physician, and Astronomy and flying enthusiast and expert.  He was so excited to be a part of this adventure that he asked if he could also go on the trip to Mt. Lemmon this evening!

It's a beautiful day in Tucson, currently 37C and sunny!  I have not yet met the children.  I will be working through tonight, but then will be able to join the group starting tomorrow evening.  I am looking forward to meeting them!  Dean tells me they are a well behaved, bright group of children!  Dean said he will try to write another update tonight, when he gets home - with pictures to share.

All the best~
Melinda

Our Excellent Monday!

Continuing from the previous post, I had dropped off our Russian friends for a few hours of rest, and I picked them up again late in the afternoon.  Not having anything planned for their arrival day, we did a little sightseeing.  First up was a short drive up "A" Mountain where we got a panorama view of the city.  I always like going up there and hearing the distant bustle of the big city, yet be surrounded by wind and sky of the small mountaintop.  We passed around the binoculars and pointed out the air force base, the interstate system that leads to LA to the West, El Paso to the East, and Nogales and Mexico to the South.  The kids wanted to climb up the hill, but I advised against it seeing that nearly all were wearing flip flops...

Next stop was a 15 minute drive to the west to Gates Pass - a climb to the top of the Tucson Mountains with another view, this time to the west towards the sunset, while being surrounded by a forest of saguaro cacti.  It was a spectacular afternoon, and before I knew it the kids were scattered among the hills (again, in flip flops!) before I could warn them to look out for rattlesnakes!  Here the kids were astounded and amazed by all the pointy stickery things of the variety of cacti to be found.

 

It was a beautiful sunset - nary a cloud in the sky, and framed by a beautiful foreground of saguaros in a notch in the hills to the west.  Being that we are a few days before the fall equinox, Sergey and I noticed that the sun was setting almost exactly due west, looking at the brass compass headings mounted into the ramada floor.  Sergey got a spectacular video of the sunset, which I'm hoping to get a copy of before he leaves...

 

As the children descended down the hill in the growing darkness, somehow they noticed a tarantula climbing the rocks.  It was good-sized, almost 10cm in length.  Everyone regarded it from a respectful distance, and of course, I went right up to it to get some close-ups.  Sergey quite earnestly warned me that they jump up to a meter and was concerned for my safety.  I knew otherwise, familiar with the fact that even wild ones can be handled without fear, though I wasn't tempted to pick it up...  However, I really wanted to get some good shots of my first encounter in the wild in over a decade!  So skip this paragraph if you are an arachnophobe (afraid of spiders), but I am definitely not!

 

Just as we were about to leave we noticed a beautiful thin crescent against the deepening twilight!  I couldn't help but run back to the ramada to shoot the Moon and horizon with twilight colors.  It made for a really nice ending to the sunset and our adventures there.  From there, we headed back towards Tucson, planning on a tour of the UA Mirror Lab where I work.  By this time the soup and oatmeal of the morning was a distant memory, so we stopped at a favorite haunt of mine - Bianchi's Italian, and ordered a few pizzas.  We ended up with 5 (!) boxes of leftovers that will be packed for lunches tomorrow...

 

Finally we got to campus and the Steward Observatory Mirror Lab, located under the east stands of the football stadium.  We make the biggest telescope mirrors in the world there.  To make it easier on me, I showed them the dated video that shows some of the construction of the Large Binocular Telescope back about 12 years ago.  What makes it interesting too is that we will be visiting the LBT on Friday...  i was abl to show them the current work on the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), with Sergey translating the important technical details.  With the clock now after 9pm and an early start to another long day tomorrow (attending school classes and Mount Lemmon observing) I had to get them home.  Likely a late post tomorrow, if any...

Russians Have Arrived!

My friends have known for some little time what I've been up to...  A friend of mine from 15 years ago, Sergey Karpov, is bringing a group of Russian amateur astronomers to Tucson to tour astronomical sites in the state.  We met when he wrote to the astronomy club here back in the 90s.  I was President of TAAA, and I think the only one who answered his letter.  Back then we had a great time - 4 of them came and I showed them around Arizona, including Meteor Crater and the Grand canyon.

They are back!  This time, instead of 3 adults and a 12-year-old, they have one adult (Sergey), and 11 kids, age 11 to 16!  It will be an interesting time - they avoid speaking English, though they study it in school, and of course, I know no Russian language.  Their 2+ days of travel ended this morning after taking the overnight train from LA.  It was about 90 minutes late, but they are in good spirits after leaving home Friday afternoon our time! 

 

After the obligatory group shot in front of the rental van for getting everyone around (back the last trip, everyone easily fit in my 8-passenger van), Sergey's suggestion was for "soft food and soup" to help ease the jet lag.  Well, I wasn't sure where to get that at 9am, but we ended up going to Village Inn, and everyone had a bowl of chicken soup (12 orders, please!) and oatmeal with toast.  It seemed satisfactory, and about 2 hours later, I got them down and checked into the local Motel 6, where they will be staying the next week in Tucson.  They were quite excited about the "Studio" version of the motel, which includes fridge and freezer, microwave and hot plate, fully equipped with silverware and dishes, and of course, cable TV!  I think the pool outside will interest them too if they ever get time to tarry at their "home away from home".  But we've got lots of things on the schedule, so not much time for fun!  Today is the slack day, and tomorrow they attend an American high school for most of the day, then go to Mount Lemmon for a night of observing there with a 32" telescope.  We're hitting the ground running!

A Final Update On Our Scruffy

I have been trying to find the right words, all day, for this post.  I'm not sure I have yet to find them.  One of the really cool things about having a blog is that it's an archived journal that can be read and enjoyed for unlimited time in the future.  It's great for jogging our memories of "which Grand Canyon Star Party??", or "When was that trip to San Diego??".  Today, however, it was a very bittersweet trip of reviewing our dear Scruffy's life with us.

We have written blog posts about Scruffy from when we first brought him in from the outside, a pitiful feral in even more pitiful shape.  You can click on the category of Kitties in the library, in the right side bar of this page.  Our first mention of Scruffy goes back to April 22, 2009 - though we had been feeding him for a full year before that date.  Originally Scruffy was quite robust, imposing, and a little scary (to be honest).  He was a huge cat that was more than capable of providing for himself.  Sometime during that year of feeding him he fell on hard times, however.  After not being around for a month or so, he showed up, a shadow of his former self - matted coat, emaciated, scared, and in dire need of help.

Dean managed to capture him, bring him in, and our Scruffy adventure began.  Trips to Vet (Dr. D at Bernard Veterinary Hospital) resulted in neutering and shaving to get rid of the mats (the first of several haircuts he had), dental work to extract the roots of broken off upper canines (probably why he was so emaciated - no longer able to catch meaty food), x-rays, and lab work.  All of which revealed Scruffy was FIV + (similar to HIV in humans).  We committed to giving him a good home, integrated him into our tribe of cats, and gave him as much food as he wanted - and he wanted a lot!  He would, sometimes, eat 3-4 bowls of wet cat food a day!  Needless to say, he gained weight - though his health problems were not over.  He was found to have spinal stenosis from an old injury, requiring pain medication every other day to let him move with less pain; he also went blind within about 6 months of coming indoors (likely a complication of the FIV) and developed high blood pressure and glaucoma.

Through the wonders of medicine Scruff's blood pressure was somewhat controlled, however his glaucoma never responded well to treatment and this past June he had surgery to remove the affected eye.  His Ophthalmologist, Dr. Ruben Merideth - a renown physician in Veterinary Ophthalmology, runs a couple of clinics in Tucson (as well as throughout the United States) and we were fortunate to have him handling Scruffy's eyes.  Dr. Merideth commented, every time he saw Scruffy, "You know, I read his chart and think 'this poor cat is a train wreck!', and then I walk in the room and see him and he's a handsome guy!  He's healthy other than his awful health problems, but he seems healthy and happy!"

So, between Scruffy's times of ill health (recurrent respiratory infections, eye infections, dehydration) he really did have some good times!  We took him on vacation to the Midwest with us last summer - 2011 (his first time to fly in a plane, stay in a motel, and walk in grass!) and he was a 'natural' at traveling.  While in Illinois we took him to Iowa with us for our niece's wedding, enabling him to win the hearts of his Illinois AND Iowa family!

He has always been a "Daddy's Boy", snuggling with Dean on the couch while watching/listening to TV - though I will admit, he seemed to have a fondness for me as well.  During our vacation last summer he managed to find his way into our bed and became a fixture, even when Dean was off to RAGBRAI.  Scruffy loved to cuddle, but would let you know when he was 'done' (usually a low rumbling growl, or a straight from "The Bride of Frankenstein" hissss).  In the picture on the right Scruffy is laying across Dean's chest and abdomen (he was really a huge cat!)

Scruffy was pretty laid back about the rest of the cats.  He tolerated them well, but let them know when they were bothering him a bit too much.  Our newest kitty, Lucy, really liked Scruffy a lot.  She would play with his tail, snuggle up next to him on the couch to nap, and was recently observed washing his face for him!  He didn't seem to mind the attention from her, except when she would bite his tail, of course.  I think he recognized that she's a playful youngster and showed great tolerance for her.  In the picture at left she is snuggled up in front of him, on the couch - showing that she's grown a huge amount since we've gotten her!

It has seemed that no matter what obstacles popped up, we were able to get Scruff through the crisis and he would bounce back better than ever.  Even with the FIV looming on the horizon, he was doing well - begging for barbeque and steak a week ago, waiting for me to fix his breakfast or dinner, toddling around the house as he has for the past few years.  All of that changed a week ago.  Once again, Scruffy seemed to have a "cold" and his appetite was just not what it had been.  When all else failed he would always eat turkey baby food, but this time he wasn't even interested in that.  We have syringe fed him before, so that was the next step - along with taking him to see Dr. D this past Monday.  She was glad to hear we were getting food into him, but thought he warranted some further testing.  His lab work revealed that the FIV was finally taking over, he was severely anemic, and he was not going to get better this time.  He spent one night at the hospital and then came home to us, "on Hospice Care" (as Dr. D put it).  We continued to Nurse him through the rest of the week, though his condition continued to rapidly deteriorate and he was no longer able to walk by Friday.

I have posted about the difficulty of making the "final decision" as a pet owner, before, when Lance was dying.  Last evening Dean and I decided that for Scruffy's comfort, and peace, we would take him to the Vet today.  I stayed awake with him most of the night, and I think Scruffy liked having someone close by - and the TV on - all night.  This noon, we took Scruffy to the Vet's office and cuddled him as he drifted off to join his brothers - Lance, Marley, and Atticus.

The couch seems very empty without him.  Making dinners for the cats this evening meant that there was too much food.  Doling out pills was too easy.  How did we get so attached to a scruffy, scrawny, feral that looked like he had been run over?  How could we not?

A Summer Favorite!

With Summertime rapidly drawing to a close, I was thinking of some of our experiences that we've not had the opportunity to post about.  Certainly one of the highlights was a visit to A Shooting Star Inn, a combination Bed & Breakfast and sound recording and portrait studios.  We've known the proprietor, Tom Taylor for many years - he has made semi-regular appearances to the Grand Canyon Star Party, and we've seen him down in Tucson a time or two also.  This last June he invited us to stop by at his B&B on the way to the 2012 Star Party and experience a night at his place.  He had also invited our friends Mike and Elvira, so the chance to experience the Inn and catch up with friends at the same time was too good to pass up!  This year we had two friends joining us at the Canyon and Tom didn't bat an eye, inviting them to join us too.

Located about a third of the way to the Canyon from Flagstaff at Kendrick Park, it is quite a spectacular location - in a broad valley surrounded by a few cinder cones.  It has a spectacular view of the extinct volcano Mount Humphrey - the highest point in Arizona, to the Southeast.  In the panorama picture at left, the last rays of the setting sun illuminate the highest peak of the San Francisco Peaks.

It is quite the incredible place!  Built from a "log cabin kit" that Tom designed from scratch, it arrived by a trio of semi trucks and was put together over a considerable length of time by him and a group of local friends.  The inside is remarkably large and roomy, with a recording studio loft tucked into the west side, and a large photographic studio on the ground floor.  I've heard there is a chemical darkroom, but I think most of his current work is digital.  Aided by girlfriend Amy, they have 3 guest rooms, commercial kitchen, large office area and their own living quarters.  Amazingly enough, they do all this "off grid", surviving solely on solar power, since they are some little distance from civilization...  They've even been experimenting with their own little brewery operation, producing a very nice ale that we were able to sample.  Their walls were covered by keepsakes of the area and Tom's own photography, which set a very nice tone for a place specializing in astronomy and local attractions.

 

After a tour and getting settled into our room, I took a walk around the structure, taking the panorama above and some of the other exterior sights.  I didn't get (or have forgotten) the story of the flamingos gracing the back yard, but they somehow did not seem out of place in the high desert of Northern Arizona.  Just a few steps from the entrance is the main telescope - a Meade 14" Schmidt Cass on a beefy Astro-Physics AP1200 mount.  Not shown in this view is a smaller refractor that a paying guest was using with a CCD camera for some very deep wide-field imaging later in the night.  Note that in this picture and panorama above that it doesn't have a roof, removable or not...  Tom says the walls block the wind to improve imaging performance, but a roof generally isn't needed - when bad weather is expected, he has a few tarps to protect sensitive equipment.

 

As darkness descended, dinner approached.  Tom and Amy cooked a gourmet meal for us, and it was great to gather 'round them preparing and cooking, hearing stories of the Inns construction and the experiences they've had.  And once served, I can't recall having more enjoyable dinner conversation that we had that night.

 

After a bit of digesting, I grabbed the camera and tripod to check out the observing conditions outside.  A good 15 air miles from Flagstaff there was a little bit of sky glow sneaking over the San Francisco Peaks, but generally the night sky was spectacular!  The Summer Milky Way was rising brilliantly, stretching over the horizon to the Northeast.  It seemed to me that there were some thin clouds moving into the area - strange, it looked perfectly clear at sunset...  A short exposure with the camera revealed the greenish secret - there was a substantial airglow display!  I wrote a blog post about it in June, which happened on a few subsequent nights at the Canyon.  If you look carefully under the Milky Way image at left, you can see the greenish layer near the horizon - it often appears at about those levels, even in the southern sky as here.  Panning around towards the Northeast under the Cygnus area of the Milky Way it is easy to see the green glow of the natural airglow that was visible to the naked eye appearing as thin clouds. 

 

Further on to the North is not only the greenish airglow, but perhaps even some purplish colors as well that I've not heard mentioned before.  Airglow is a natural phenomenon caused by oxygen in the upper atmosphere.  Atoms absorb solar ultraviolet light during the daytime and re-emit them in the evening at characteristic greenish colors.  I think that the fact it happened so close to Summer solstice when the days are longest and the sun is closest to our Northern horizon at night helps to explain these displays in my mind...  In this picture, the "W" of Cassiopeia is at extreme lower right with the Double Cluster of Perseus below it on the horizon.  At upper left, the dipper of the Big Dipper is just descending into the frame at top.  All these pictures, by the way, are with a 16mm fisheye lens at F/2.8, with 60 second exposures at ISO 1600.  I checked with the observer at the telescope who was unaware of the sky display - he was doing some amazing imaging of very faint nebulae in the Milky way and was little effected by the small amount of airglow display.  I turned into bed shortly afterwards...

 

The next morning we needed to leave early for the Star Party at the Canyon - we ended up leaving at the ungodly hour of 11am!  As a post pancake treat, Tom pulled out his Coronado SolarMax 90 for some exquisite views of some solar storms on the sun.  I don't think I've ever seen solar prominences so clearly as through that scope - it was very nice!  Shown in this picture is our buddy Mike, and our friend Rob, seated, who was joining us for the Star Party that week.  Our visit to A Shooting Star Inn was a great stop on what is normally a very long hectic drive to the Canyon.  It was so nice to unwind on a quiet evening before "roughing it" in the campground for days at the Star Party.  Many thanks to Tom and Amy for hosting us for the night - we'd love to come back!

Up On The Roof!

Life is full of little coincidences.  While we were in Illinois this summer, exactly 1 year after we had our cottage roof replaced, we got a call from our house sitter in Tucson.  A monsoonal storm with straight-line wind of over 50 mph had blown off part of our roof nearly 2,000 miles away!  If you want to experience some frustration, try dealing with insurance adjustors and getting estimates and arrange repair from 2 time zones away.  Complicating things is that with all the summer storm activity, we couldn't even get roofing companies to come give estimates for weeks - about the time we returned to Tucson.  Fortunately for us, Jason, our house sitter, played puzzle master, got the pieces of roofing reassembled, nailed down and covered by a trio of tarps while we were away. 

Once returned, we added another few hundred pounds of bricks to hold the tarps down so the wind wouldn't send them to the next county.  I finally got 3 estimates (one was over twice the other two!), and chose one of the two reasonable quotes. The insurance adjustment (to cover just the damaged part of the roof), covered about half the full replacement, so we chose to replace the 22-year-old roof - about time!

And finally, today was the day - about 2 months after the damage was done!  I had removed the tarps last night, eyeing the damage for the first time, pics shown above.  Shortly after 6am came the sounds of circling trucks in the neighborhood - it took them a while for them to find us in our little cul-de-sac off the dead end.  But in short order they were down-to-business, the dump truck backed up to the house for the discarded old roofing, removing rotted and questionable plywood decking, replacing the pair of skylights and flashing around all the plumbing vents of the house.  After we installed central AC a few years back, we've never used the swamp cooler, so they removed that as well for us and sealed off that duct work.  After a few hours of pounding it suddenly grew quiet - lunchtime was called as they waited for delivery of more plywood...

 

The crew worked as a well-oiled machine as everyone had their tasks.  Soon the pounding stopped as they started applying the new roofing layers.  Unlike the shingle roofs of the Midwest, in the moderate temperatures of the Southwest, a built-up roof using multiple layers of fiberglass felt layers bonded with roofing tar - a petroleum product that is solid at normal temperatures, but liquid when heated for application.  In the pictures here, Carlos, the foreman of the crew, applies just the right amount of boiling hot asphalt on the fiberglass layer with a mop, and another crewman helps position it before they move on.  This roof has 3 layers and will be covered with a reflective coat in a couple weeks after some of the volatiles evaporate.

 

They did a fine job, and our little roof was a "short day" for them, only taking them about 6.5 hours, just a little longer than our shingled roofing job in Illinois took 14 months ago.  The house looks weird to me now with the profile of the swamp cooler missing.  It will regain its white coating in a couple weeks, and we should be good for another decade or more!  In the meantime, even though the weather forecast had a 0% chance of rain today, we had sprinkles and a sunset rainbow to christen it...