Joani had the idea to get up early and watch the sunrise over Goblin Valley. Needless to say, her resolve was tested when it was time to get up in the dark. With a bit of prodding, we were able to get to the Observation Point before the sun. The glowing reds, oranges and yellows creeping into the deep blue/black sky make the early wake-up worthwhile and there's always the afternoon nap to make up for any lost sleep!
The sunrise was nice, but I was ready for some breakfast. I can't see the early morning trips becoming a habit anytime soon.
We re-charged our batteries and waited until after lunch to explore Goblin Valley. There was no real delineation between Valley 1, Valley 2 and Valley 3, but we are pretty sure we hiked far enough to see them all. It was a strange hike in that there was absolutely no trail. It was virtually impossible to get lost since the 300 foot high(?) butte next to the campground was nearly always visible.
Is the Donkey Kong Ape sticking his tongue out?
As we hiked along one of the stream beds, Joani found a path of soft mud. I think she sank in a good 6-8 inches and lost her flip-flop before she even realized what was happening!
The shapes of the rocks were wildly varied and seemed to defy gravity as they sat perched upon tiny columns of soft sandstone.
I think David is nose to nose with E.T.
In talking to John, I found he had an extensive background in astronomy and he was a guest of the park to help them establish a night sky interpretive program. He asked me to help out for the evening by setting up my telescope. He had a program in mind where he would talk to the guests about the constellations and have me find different objects that he mentioned so that folks could step over and look through the telescope occasionally to see an example of what he was discussing. This allowed the Rangers to see exactly how the interpretive program might go.
I was extremely surprised and pleased that 19 people showed up to hear John speak about the night sky when it had only been posted that afternoon. He later reminded me that there was not a lot of competition for their attention. With no hook-ups, nobody was watching TV and being so far from any town there was no place to go for dinner or any other entertainment - still, I thought it was a very good turn-out!
I think the program went well and the rangers seemed to agree. I only wish I could have heard more of what John was saying. He kept their attention for well over an hour and I don't think a single person left until he finished. He had me turn the telescope towards several objects I realized I had never before seen in my telescope.
After everyone left, John evaluated my telescope. I had never tried to collimate it but thought it was probably good. He confirmed the alignment was good and suggested looking an Epsilon Lyrae, a double-double star. John tried a 3.5 mm eyepiece (yielding 570x magnification). We could easily separate the close pairs of stars. Then he pushed it up to 800x using a 2.5 mm eyepiece. The stars, 1.5 arcseconds apart, were clearly separated with nearly perfect diffraction rings around each. John seemed pretty impressed which I took as a good sign. Although I had no experience with these levels of magnification I was surprised we could see the two stars separated so clearly at all. I think John was surprised as well.
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