In the Ask Jeeves Planetarium we were greeted by CSSC Chairman Bob Brauer who had many kind words for the work of EAS in establishing the new Chabot. After door prizes a series of awards were presented. The Helen Pillans Award went to Ken Swagerty for his outstanding contributions to the Rachel restoration effort. Bob Brauer, Councilman Dick Spees and Mike Reynolds assisted with presenting a special award to Terry Galloway for 31 years of work on the Chabot project and awards to the five core members of the Rachel team: in addition to Ken, they were Don Saito, Denni Medlock, Kevin Medlock and myself. These awards were made with old wood from Rachel’s observing platform and bolts from Rachel that had been replaced with stainless steel ones. Those for the Rachel team were painted Rachel blue while Terry’s was gold plated.
I gave a short presentation about Jewett Castello Gilson, the Superintendent of Schools who wanted to have an observatory and Anthony Chabot, and then announced two new Minor Planets (11006) Gilson and (12675) Chabot. Don Stone presented longevity awards then dropped his bombshell: Minor Planet (10683) Carter, now in orbit between Mars and Jupiter.
A Red, White & Blue Star Party in the White Mountains
The annual low-oxygen star party over the July 4th weekend at the Barcroft Laboratory at 12435 ft had five clear nights with the temperature at or just above freezing and only one night with significant wind. The highlight was the reentry of a Russian rocket Saturday night about 10:20 p.m. First spotted by Debbie Dyke near Spica just above the western horizon, it moved east-northeast clear across the sky shedding pieces which left long bright trains. We finally lost sight of it about 5 degrees above the ENE horizon. A few minutes later we heard a faint sonic boom.
Naked eye observing was excellent, with the Lagoon, Trifid, and Swan visible as well as most of the “M’s.” There was only one case of altitude sickness. The high-altitude physiological researchers from U.C.S.D. were a lot of fun.
The image was taken with a fish-eye
lens looking south. The familiar shape of the scorpion can easily
be traced just to the lower right of the center. The glow on the
southern horizon is the eastern portion of the LA basin, Pomona-San
Bernardino etc. which is 250 miles away. To the left is
the glow of Las Vegas from 200 miles.
The last night was the 4th of July.
The researchers had finished their work and were leaving the next
day so they had a big party with fireworks.