| Yosemite 2009 Every year during the summer season the park rangers invite a California astronomy club to cover a public star party for each weekend. It's a fun experience getting to share the night sky with park visitors from all over the world. Here are a couple of shots from turn-outs not far from Glacier Point. A nice view of Vernal Falls. |
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2009 A shot of Half Dome. You can tell from the shadows that it's late in the afternoon. Just heading in from the campground to get set up for the evening. |
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2009 Another view of Vernal Falls. |
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2009 O.K. - I like taking pictures of the mountains :) |
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2009 Half Dome is really awesome from Glacier Point! |
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2009 We set up in the amphitheater at Glacier Point for the star parties. This was my first trip to Glacier Point with the Santa Cruz Astronomy Club. |
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2009 There's Chris and Richard getting ready. |
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2009 From the main parking lot there's an access road that they let us use to load unload and load up afterwards. It runs right up to the top of the amphitheater. |
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2009 The trees make a pretty good frame for Half Dome. |
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2009 There's a hill right behind and to the west of the set up area so it gets dark a bit earlier than other areas. It does block some of the views but there are plenty of other great sights to see at night. |
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2009 Chris taking a moment to enjoy the view. |
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2009 Our resident moon man, Craig. He does wonderful drawings of the moon using a beautiful refractor telescope. That's my rig on the right. |
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2009 Richard taking a light reading for a picture. Photography and astro photography is serious business :) |
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2009 Wow! This was just a quick snapshot, and the colors came out pretty good. |
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2009 Pretty good composition if I do say so myself :) |
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2009 Richard and Bill in the back with Craig taking a picture of Half Dome. |
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2009 Richard having a bit of breakfast on Saturday morning. |
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2009 My new tent. Way better than at the rain fiasco at Big Sur in 2008. |
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2009 Fred's Sprinter and some of the other guy's tents. |
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2009 A couple of shots of long-time club member, Bill Seiler. |
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2009 Bill and Vernal Falls. |
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2009 Everyone is set up and now we just wait for all the folks to wander out to see the scopes and the night sky. |
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2009 As it starts to get dark we (Bill) does a short slide presentation on the types of telescopes we're using, the objects that are available for viewing that night and a little bit of star party etiquette. Once that's done, the ranger takes all the folks over to the point for a talk on the constellations. By the time the ranger finishes, it's dark enough to start looking through the scopes. We usually have between 30 and 70 folks on both Friday and Saturday nights. |
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2009 Fred, me and one of the park guests. |
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2009 A bunch of the park visitors enjoying the telescopes and night sky. Lots of really interesting folks from all over the world get a fun night of astronomy. |
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2009 Fred got out his nice digital camera and took a few shots of Half Dome. |
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2009 A little bit tighter, now :) |
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2009 A pretty tight shot of the tip of Half Dome. |
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