mountains and desert: geeking out (6)

We don't usually start a day of driving and sightseeing with a glass of wine, but we were in New Mexico wine country, and the timing only worked to visit a winery 10 miles away from where we had stayed the previous night.  (We followed our post-breakfast glass of wine with quite a bit of water!)  This is the Tularosa winery, just north of Alamogordo.  They also grow pistachios and pecans.

We had a choice of two petroglyph sites to visit, one just off our drive for the day, one in Albuquerque.  Since we thought we'd have more time on our travel day than in the city, we stopped, and we're glad we did.  What a neat area!  This is Three Rivers Petroglyph Recreational Site, about 3 miles off highway 54.

Then it was on to the Very Large Array!  For quite a bit of geekery...

Who wouldn't want radio telescope bathroom tiles?!

We arrived at the visitor center just before the gift shop was to close, so we had to change our "on our way out" policy and pick up our swag first.  Since the VLA is free to visit, and the gift shop lady so helpful (free homeschool packet!), we were happy to support them with our T-shirt, sticker, and mug purchases.

The self-guided tour is excellent, starting with a movie and indoor exhibits, you then move outside to follow their walking tour around the area.  Since this is a working site, with people in all the surrounding buildings, even though it's literally in the middle of nowhere and there was no one with us, we didn't feel too isolated.

Storms began to surround us as we explored, so we finished briskly (desert storms are quick and full of lightening!) and made our way the 45 minutes back to Socorro.

After dinner, we had a astronomy talk with some students from the astronomy club at New Mexico Tech... just for us!  We were supposed to do some telescope observing, but the clouds had firmly stuck around by evening, so we did some virtual observing on the internet, and had nice discussions with these smart kids.

The lightening show was quite spectacular when we were on our way out!

Next:  I don't have to look up how to spell Albuquerque anymore!

mountains and desert: 850' underground, thousands of light years away (4)

I'm not sure that Mammoth Cave in Kentucky was the first cave I visited as a kid, but it was certainly the one that made a lasting impression.  I loved that cave, and loved the tunnel system map I had on my bedroom wall until I moved out.  (Hey Mom, is that poster still around?!)  Being in a cave is as close to visiting another planet as one can get, unlike anywhere above ground.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park is another incredible system.  It's so hard to covey the feeling of being inside through pictures, to show the awesome vastness of huge underground spaces and formations.  For example:  the eighth picture from the top, of the two thick stalagmites on the right (you "might" trip over them on the floor) and one long thin stalactite (it holds "tight" to the ceiling) on the left?  The formation on the right, that looks like layers of frozen icicles stacked up, is twice as tall as a two story house.  How to convey such enormousness?!  Ah well.

We took the elevators down twice into the cave, the first for the King's Palace tour, then after lunch, we walked the Big Room tour ourselves, then hiked out (since the elevator line to go up was 2.5 hours long!)  We were thrilled to see some incredible things, aside from the incredible formations and caverns:  about 1/2 way to the top on our hike out, we came along the path to see people crawling on their bellies, seeming to spill out of the cavern wall onto the path!  We had happened upon the end of the 4-hour long Hall of the White Giant tour.  As they caught their breath, we chatted a little with them about their trip.  Later, in the visitor's center, we found the practice "tunnel" they use to make sure participants will be able to comfortably navigate the tight tunnels.  (Not us! we all decided!)

We also were fortunate enough to see the "light shaft" at the natural entrance.   Only occurring for 1/2 an hour each afternoon during only 2 months of the year, it was visible exactly the time we were hiking out (around 4:45 or so pm).  I've never seen anything like that beam, visible from far back in the cave as we approached.  Note, in the picture with Jeff and the girls, near the top of the shaft high up, you can see a railing.  That's where we still need to climb to to exit.

As we finished our day, eating supper at the park (great Mexican food!) and waiting for the bat flight program (pictures not allowed) the girls finished their Jr. Ranger books and received their badge patches (their 7th to date, if I calculate correctly).  We soaked in the 100° F warmth after the 56° cave, then went to watch the bat program and see the bats leave the cave at dusk.

Although the girls were tired, the skies were dark and clear and gorgeous.  A few amateur astronomers had their large telescopes (the 20" Newtonian reflector was awesome!) set up in the now-mostly empty park parking lot and a very small group of us enjoyed star gazing for a little while.  We got to see Saturn and a few moons, the Ring Nebula, the M4 galaxy, and the Veil Nebula (which I've never seen before).  I grew up with a 6" then an 8" reflector (right Dad?), and took a couple astronomy classes in college, so I really enjoyed the evening out.  We also got to see the ISS flyby!  (Waving to MN native Karen Nyberg on board!)

A lovely day, seeing God's incredible work in the extremes below and above!

after 30+ hours in the car

sorry for the absence,  

colorado is far away...  

but sweet sweet baby niece was worth it.

more very soon, once my head's on straight again after the past 5 day road trip.

(p.s. there's a lunar eclipse tonight by us, 

though we won't see it for the snow.  

check out if you can see it by you!)

in the night.

Tonight, autumn begins.  The Harvest Moon is full tomorrow night, the dark is passing up the sunlight.

Please go outside and take a look at Jupiter tonight, if it's clear where you are, and bring the kids...  Jupiter is at opposition, meaning, it's opposite the sun, with us (Earth, of course) in between.

Jupiter is only 367.5 million miles away!

Okay, okay, you're not impressed.

How 'bout:  Jupiter is brighter and closer than it's been since 1963!  and won't be this close again until 2022!!

Here's a neat article, that's not too technical, explaining this phenomenon and also talking about Uranus appearing close to Jupiter.  We'd never see that in our city lights, but seems it's just visible to the naked eye!  Wow.

(unfortunately, these pictures were taken at midnight, so the children didn't witness the view.  maybe the rain will hold off tonight or tomorrow... we'll see!)

Happy planet-gazing!

set your alarm!

When I was a kid, I was very proud of my dad. (Not like I'm not now! but anyway...)

Way back in Battle Creek, growing up, I went with him a few times to "help" build the telescope he was making in a class at the local natural history museum - wow, I loved and knew that museum well, good old Kingman. Dad was an amateur astronomer, and I loved being his sidekick. I loved using his Astronomy Magazines and a red-plastic covered flashlight to help find whatever fuzzy star cluster we were looking for, or counting how many moons of Jupiter we could see that time around. I loved getting up at odd hours to see unique astronomical phenomena - Halley's comet once, another time Neptune at 4:00 in the morning. (That was during Neptune's phase in orbit that runs outside Pluto's orbit - I guess I've viewed in the sky all of the currently labeled "planets" in the solar system, since the only one we haven't is Pluto/Charon!)

Living in a city, without much access to dark sky and no telescope, our current star viewing is limited to me pointing out bright magnitude objects and constellations. It's pretty sad to me that our regular viewing is limited to the big dipper and the northern cross. (Check out Venus in the western sky at sunset these days, though! very pretty!)

A few days ago in the morning I was listening to All Things Considered on public radio, when they mentioned that we'd be able to see, here in Minnesota, the crossing of the International Space Station in the evening sky. Exciting!!

Jeff had a sinking feeling, however, when I announced to him that we needed to set an alarm... he knows me well enough, and assumed I'd be dragging him and K out of bed at 3:00 in the morning or something! noooo... !

The first night, although the magnitude was brighter and the crossing higher, we couldn't see it due to the brightness of the sky at 9:15 pm.

Last night, the highest point of the crossing was at 9:41 pm, and we were out there early to try to spot it. The sky was still too bright in the west, where the station was rising, and we couldn't see it until Jeff found it, right about at its highest point. We ran across the street to stand in the dentist's yard and watch it quickly set in the northeast.




See the tiny dim spot in the last 2 pictures? These were taken only a second or 2 apart - that's how fast the satellite moves. It was only visible for less than 2 minutes in our sky.

After we saw it, we sat down with the girls in front of the computer for a few minutes to show them pictures of what they just saw - outside and in! They were pretty amazed.

Here's two websites to help you out in your search for satellites in your own neighborhood!

Satellite Flybys
Heavens-Above

(At Heavens-Above, under Configuration, click on "select from map" to specify your location.)

Happy satellite viewing!