I'll be there. John Lundwall ----- Original Message ----- From: Jim Gibson<mailto:jimgibson00@yahoo.com> To: UVAA List<mailto:uvaa@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 8:04 AM Subject: [UVAA] Workshop site David Trevino and Mary Kay Clark Thank you for your suggested moon watch sites. I did get a chance to check out the site David suggested. It is a great site. It has restrooms, no park lights other than in the parking lot and a good grassy area, and it is very easy to find. The draw backs may be the traffic on Geneva Rd, and a few trees near the street. I dont think those will be a big problems for a moon watch for a moon at about 8 12 days old and later. The park closes at 11PM. I red the park regulations and there is nothing we cant comply with. There is a replica of old Fort Provo there, a baseball diamond (no lights), and a pavilion with picnic tables. While I was in the area I checked out Utah Lake State Park. It is a fee area but otherwise has some possibilities. I drove out on the dike and looked around and I took a short jaunt to the Provo air port. Davids site is by far the best of what I saw. I went up Geneva Rd. to University Park Way and went West hoping to find something nice by the lake. Nothing there. I hope to check out Marys site before too long. Mary the Wasatch wont be a problem for us if we are looking at a moon in the first quarter; the first 2 weeks after new moon or so. The moon will be mostly in the west. Saturn is overhead, but Jupiter will be behind those beautiful mountains. I have two things in mind right now for the first couple of workshops. I thought we could do something on Collimation. Collimation is a process of aligning the optics of an optical system such as a telescope. Remember, a workshop is not a lecture, in a workshop everybody has to do something even if you dont have a telescope. When I say do something I mean everyone has to look through an open focuser, peer through a Cheshire Collimation Tool, adjust the secondary mirror, and twitle the knobs on the primary mirror. We will probably collimate by looking at the reflection of the secondary while slightly out of focus and peering at a bright star. Last of all we will use a laser collimation tool, which, by the way, is not a necessary to get good collimation. So, don't think you have to run out and buy one. The other thing I am thinking about doing is covering the very basics about volcanism the way I taught my 5 year old grandson with boiling chocolate pudding. The problem is, what do you do with the lefovers, I need to know how many people will be there to know how much pudding to make and how much ice-cream I need to cool it off. Sorry I have not found low carb chocolate pudding yet. Once we see the mechanics of volcanism we need a little demo on impact craters. I probably need a box of sand and a sling shot for that. Once we have these ideas in our heads we can look at the moon with new eyes and full stomachs. JG Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mailtag_us/*http://mail.yahoo.com> - More reliable, more storage, less spam_______________________________________________ UVAA mailing list UVAA@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uvaa