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...
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...
Thank you, Dean, for interesting first day for our travellers! And for the interesting story for us :)
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