Hi Kate, It has been while since I observed from St. George, but here are a couple of quick stories from there. If you have an email, I'll send along a photo of my 12.5 inch scope at sunrise for you to use if you wish. In 1993 around Christmas I did observing from the old St. George airport for some of the winter objects in my book "Finder Charts of Overlooked Objects." I am talking about the real old airport that was an emergency landing strip for the Army back in WWII. The new St. George airport is now located there. Back then, it was a drag strip and model airport. I loaded my pickup truck with my 22 inch telescope in the back, and the tube on top and traveled from my home in Bountiful to the old airport. I arrived and set the scope up by myself. The baseboard, cradle, box, and tube were all separate pieces. The scope itself weighed around 400 pounds total. It is quite a chore to set it up solo, but I had a system for doing so. I set up in the parking lot for the model airport on the west end of the old field. The night started out mediocre, but as it progressed the sky became more transparent, and I was able to get some good observing done. Around three o'clock in the morning I decided to go to sleep. I left the scope set up because when packed it occupied the space I used for sleeping. Somewhere around 8:00 I was awakened by the buzzing of model airplane engines. I got out of my sleeping bag and stumbled across the parking lot to meet the owners of these machines. They were a very friendly bunch and were very interested in what on earth that big yellow tube that extended 12 feet in the air was. We shared interests and our two hobbies. After they had flown enough to satisfy their desires, they helped my put the scope back into my truck, we drove into town and had a nice breakfast together. The second experience was not so benign Re-entry of the Space Shuttle often occurred over southern Utah. A group of us from northern Utah decided to make it a bigger event. On January 31, 2003 we descended on the same location, the old airport. I set up my 12.5 inch dob and we had a good observing session. The sky was transparent and steady. About midnight we turned in with the desire to arise early and watch Columbia re-enter over the top of our heads. We arose and began the watch. Shuttle re-entries are pretty spectacular. The ion trail left by the craft as it enters the atmosphere is a delightful color somewhere between purple and magenta. The ship itself is a brilliant orange color. That description doesn't really describe the electric nature of the color, only the shade. Soon we could see the spacecraft coming over the western horizon. This time was different. As described by one of my fellow observers, there were sparks coming off the bright orange dot, and at times leaving their own trails. After the shuttle passed overhead, while we were packing up I had the radio on. There was a news bulletin that the shuttle was overdue, and later it was confirmed that it had disintegrated. What we saw was the shuttle starting to come apart. We drove home in shock over what we had seen. One of our group observed from the Leeds exit and actually got a photo as it traveled overhead. He sent it to NASA to aid in putting the disaster timeline together. I am sorry, but I don't have that image on this computer. It is at my home some 6,000 miles away. Perhaps another person reading this will have a copy of it for you. I hope this gives you a little to talk about. Let me know if you have any questions. Brent On Sunday, September 20, 2015 1:55 PM, Kate Magargal <katemagargal@gmail.com> wrote: To the astronomers of southern Utah, This year at the Heritage Star Fest in Torrey, UT, I'll be giving a talk. I thought it would be a fun idea to share people's stargazing stories as part of this event. I have enough of my own stories to fill an hour, but I thought it would be great to represent a wider breadth of the astronomy community. I'd love it if anyone else was willing to send me a story of their own that I could use as part of a compilation of experiences. I'm looking for any of the following: A short written description of an astronomy experience in S. Utah. As little as a sentence or two would be great. Images that illustrate the story. Astronomical images, images of people having fun, images of the setting of an event, etc. Some information about how you would like to be credited. This is a not-for-profit endeavor. I'd be happy to share the resulting presentation with anyone who wants it. It will be a powerpoint file that includes ample notes on each slide. Anyone and everyone is invited join us for the Heritage Starfest <http://www.heritagestarfest.com/> this year, Oct 9 & 10 in and around Capitol Reef National Park. Thanks and happy autumn! k -- ----------------------------------------- Kate Magargal PhD Student Anthropology Department University of Utah ------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. To unsubscribe go to: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".