Astro 25 – Spring ‘19 - PowerPoint Presentation

Astro 25 – Spring ‘19 Sequoia National Park

It’s a beautiful area of California

Saturday Mar 16 Pre-Trip Meeting On Campus: 9am-noon Checklist: 1. Get liability waivers signed and returned 2. Collect $12 each for camp meals. Ann and I will buy all your food (except lunch and snacks, which you should bring). 3. Distribute map packets 4. Distribute entrance fee waiver copies 5 . Help you arrange your car pooling. Make list of who and when planning to arrive, vehicles. 6 . Get cell phone numbers on a common sheet which we can dup and give out to people who need them. I’ll give you mine 7 . Brief planetarium presentation

Some Important Points We’re camping at Potwisha Campground, the only reservable campground open this early time of year at Sequoia, and closest to our “Main Event” the lunar graze on Saturday night I’ll cook for you Fri and Sat Dinners, and Sat/Sun breakfasts! All for a low-low $12! Our hike to Marble Falls is strenuous; 2,000 ft of climbing and 7 miles round trip. If you don’t think you can accomplish it, you’ll miss my lectures, but can still take short walks around the area, including the main river across the hwy.

To Bring… WARM clothes!! Personal camping gear (tent, sleeping bag etc ) Personal water, lunch food, any snacks to share Red headlamp ( EverReady at Outdoor World works great, $20 or so) Binoculars if you have them. 3-ring binder notebook for notes, maps TP on trail, towel for any wash up, dipping in the (cold!) streams Camp chair for around the fire

A Unique Study Location It has beautiful granite rock formations and the steep canyons. We’ll talk about why. During the day we’ll have micro-lectures along our hike, on planetary science, star formation and evolution, and the origin of the chemical elements making up our planet and all other planets We’ll be just above 2,000 ft elevation, cool nights but days should be nice for hiking

How to Get There: It’s a 4hr 30 minute drive, 229 miles. That’s one good reason to carpool!

Directions: Take Hwy 129 exit through Watsonville, to Hwy 101 north, to Hwy 25 then quick left turn on Bloomfield Rd which “T”’s into Hwy 152

Then stay on 152 through Los Banos and on to Hwy 99, then south to Visalia

Exit east onto Hwy 198 and stay on it into the Sierra foothills. Go through the town of Three Rivers and…

…Pay attention; Note Eggars Drive. We’ll be driving back down here for our graze on Saturday afternoon

Continue to Potwisha Campground on your left.

There’s an overflow parking area on the far side if we have too many cars for our sites (not unlikely!). We’ll sort that out when you arrive

We have reserved sites 14, 15, 17 at the upper end, where the trail starts. I will try to get another site if there are late cancellations by other campers

Schedule on Friday Plan to arrive at camp hopefully before dark on Friday Apr 5 . I expect to get there in early afternoon if all goes well. I know you may have work or class or may otherwise come in a bit later, but try to arrive before dark if you can. If it’s supposed to be raining cats ‘n dogs all weekend, we may pull an emergency change-of-venue and go to Red Rock Canyon in the Desert, which is a longer drive, but quite beautiful. I hope not, but we must be flexible. The main reason for our Sequoia site is the grazing occultation Saturday night My team will work on dinner as soon as twilight approaches and we have set out our camping gear Not sure about fires. We have a permit, but will have a fire only if our site permits to do one SAFELY. Firewood should be plentiful around

When I arrive I’ll choose which will be our “kitchen / Group” site and hopefully the same for group campfire talks

Friday Night Telescope Adventures We’ll use the 8” Celestron 8SE and Kirk’s 12” Dobsonian to explore the Spring Milky Way, the star forming regions of Orion and Monoceros, the exploded remnants of a supernova in Taurus , and all variety of stars, with micro-lectures along the way. Bring you warm clothes, it’ll get into the 40’s at night.

Star Clusters of the Milky Way

Our Carrizo Plain camp area lit by red headlamps

Saturday morning: My famous French Crepes Breakfast about 8am

Breakfast: My famous French Crepes batter, given an extra bit of attention for the photo by one of my Astro students

Focus, Rick! Concentration is required for good crepes!

Becky enjoying her crepe, sweetened with lemon curd, and her smile!

Then: the trail to Marble Falls is 3.5 miles each way, and 2,000 ft of climbing. Similar or a little more, than the High Peaks Trail at Pinnacles national Park. We may go only part-way depending on factors

The trail to Marble Falls.

Marble Falls

The River across the Hwy (larger; not the Marble Falls creek)

If we decide instead the falls is too far for our group (and my knee??), and too much endangers our early pack up and drive to the Graze site, we may make it a shorter hike and use the extra time to drive up into the Sequoias with the tourists.

Giant Sequoia, which we may get to see if we get an early enough return on our Marble Falls hike. We’ll talk it over (my knee injury may involve!)

I like to do “micro-lectures” along the way on our day hikes; origin of the elements in stars, star formation and evolution, and planet formation. I’ll bring handouts for you to keep, on planetary science, on the trail.

Friday or Saturday nights, if cloudy, we’ll spend talking astronomy and cosmology around the campfire

This is a TOTAL occultation. We’re going to observer a rarer GRAZING occultation

That’s me, getting the video gear going

The graze limit line through Three Rivers

One of our 2 neighboring graze station sites, this at 1.90 km north of the limit

Closeup of our Graze site at 1.9km North

The rugged south polar area of the moon, vertical exaggerated by 20x. The star will appear to move left to right behind these peaks and valleys

Happy students and the moon. That will be us!

We’ll all carve together, come dinner time Saturday, after returning from the graze (or before, if our schedule dictates)

A cosmology lecture after the graze excitement is over. Here, I’m trying to explain how BIG the universe is

Sunday Plan 8am: We’ll prep breakfast; fried veges in olive oil and scrambled eggs with tortillas, is the tentative plan. Or home-made gourmet granola (we’re still discussing among the kitchen team) Then clean up, and pack up camp as quick as you can

Sunday after Packing UP: Then a final very short hike starting a mile further up the river, near Buckeye campground, for some final microlectures . We’ll be on the road heading home before noon, is the plan . I’ll hand out the take-home final exams as our last official act.