Our venue for the Oct 2010 Death Valley Star Party was the Sunset Campground.  Although, not ideal, it provided a nice observing location and was convenient for the Park visitors.  We had about 75 people visit and observe through our scopes each night.  The weather was pretty decent both nights, at least until 2:00 AM.  About 100 people stopped by the General Store to observe the Sun through our solar scopes.  Below are some photos from our latest outing.

Solar Viewing at the General Store

The Observing Area

   John's Monster 25-inch Dob                                              Bob Sherman and his 10-inch Dob

Fred Rayworth and his 16-inch Lightbridge                                         Pedro's 6-inch Refractor                 

John, Bob, and Herb

2010 Cathedral Gorge Star Party and Campout Report

The Moon and Venus over Cathedral Gorge

For those of you that didn't make it to Cathedral Gorge this year, you missed two really great events.  Our last outing on 10 and 11 September had two really great nights of observing, at least until about 2:00 Sunday morning.  Skies were clear and pretty steady and there was almost no wind this year.

Attendance was probably the lowest I've seen in the five years I've been making the short trek to this little state park outside of Panaca, NV.  We only had about 40 folks attend our pot luck lunch and raffle on Saturday.  We would like to thank our out of state astronomer, Rob Walker from Chicago, for joining us. (Rob, if you see this report, we would love to see some of the photos you took during our event.) We also had several out of state and international visitors to observe through our scopes.

The rest of this report is going to be a photo essay of the event and winners of the raffle.  (Just click on the images below to see a larger image.) I'm sorry I didn't get photos of everyone at their scopes.  If you have some photos of this Cathedral Gorge event and wouldn't mind sharing them with the Society, please forward them to me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Saturday's Setup

The Main Observing Area being setup                                              Geary and Laurie Keilman

George and Priscilla Messenger                       Fred Rayworth                                             David Blanchette

   Bob Sherman                                                 Herb Young                                            Sasha Skerlich

     Will Ribeiro                          David Blanchette/Priscilla Messenger         Rob's Launch Control Center

One of Rob's Visitors

A harmless Desert Racer or Green Whipsnake

Prize Winners

     Astronomy Subscription          Astrozap $50 Certificate         Bob's Knobs Certificate                Deep Sky Planner

              Becky Warnken               Will Ribeiro/Russ Barlow    Russ Barlow/Mitch Johnson                Glen R. Ryan

        Garrett Optical Binos           JMI Telescope Case        Lumicon $25 Certificate                     

             Mitch Johnson                  Priscilla Messenger    Bruce Martin/Geary Keilman   

    LVAS Prizes                          Night Sky Monopoly                     OPT Eyepiece                         Orion DVD Pack

Becky & Jim Warnken/Glen R. Ryan             Fred Rayworth                            Rob Walker                                Glen Ryan

      Fred Rayworth/Rob Walker

                      Becky Malone

Orion Prizes                ScopeCity $25 Certificate             TeleVue Barlow                    Unihedron Poster

Will Ribeiro/Glen Ryan     Herb Young/Fred Rayworth               Russ Barlow                        David Blanchett

    Geary Keilman/Neil McDonal              Cindy Heller

Congratulations to all of our winners - they walked away with some pretty nice prizes.  We hope you'll join us next year for your share of the fun and prizes.

Perseid Meteor Shower - 12 August 2010

Below are a few photos by LVAS Member Tony Nievera taken during the Perseid Meteor Shower August 12 and 13 at the Borrow Pit on Lee Canyon Road near Mt. Charleston.  Notice the beauty of the Milky Way as seen from the outskirts of Las Vegas.  You don't have to go too far from Vegas to see the wonders of the night sky. Thank you for sharing these photos, Tony.

B to T - Moon, Venus, Saturn, Mars, Spica                          The Milky Way from just outside of Vegas

A Perseid Meteor streaking toward the Pipe Nebula in the Milky Way

(This photo was shown on the Channel 3 News by Kevin Janison)

The weather finally held for our Valley of Fire All-Nighter held at Group Campsite #2 on 13 February.  In addition, to the 35 LVAS members, family , and guests, we had a group of Cub Scouts and a few other visitors to share the night sky.  Thanks to John Boron and David Blanchette for the photos taken during the setup.  Our next All-Nighter will be at Sandstone Quarry on April 10th.

I need your help in identifying those that participated in this outing.  If you were there or have corrections regarding those that I have listed below, please send me a note.   Here are the folks I remember being there:  David Blanchette, Paul Kelm, Tom Smith, son and grandkids, Frank and his wife, John Boron and three professional photographers, Matt Starr, Matthew Vannah, Joe Dimartino, Mike Turley and kids, Richard and Becky Sullivan, Mark, Patrick Whiting and his wife from Baltimore, Rob and Rene' Howard, Geary Keilman, Fred Rayworth, and Elena and Art.  There was also the couple in the Vette and another couple and their friend. If you can help me in correcting and completing this list, I would appreciate it. - Rob

View from parking lot  View from the rocks above

David surveys the area    Rich and Becky's observing area

David's Monster SCT Rob's Lil' Hubble and the Club Solar Scope

 Almost Ready

Mike and kids are ready and waiting Darkness Approaches