I'm back -- sorta

Which is to say that my trusty, not-so-reliable iMac is in the hospital. As I said earlier, I am working on a loaner, with neither DVD player nor PhotoShop. Please come up with some friendly, encouraging vibes for the ailing hard drive with all my pictures on it; I could lose a year's worth! Forgive any slight (or major) tilt you might see in my pictures, since I don't have the capability of remedy.

The question, of course, is "what does this picture have to do with any of these travails?" Let's see if I can explain. The pic, of course, is not of a deliberate sculpt, but rather, an abandoned equatorial mount for a telescope. LH built the very solid stand at the back of our house not long after we moved here; he was excited to add the scope and take his first pictures. But, OOPS! All the stars had little squiggly tails. Apparently this ever-so-solid platform had been erected smack dab on what is probably a mini-mini fault, common in the hills hereabouts.

Why would I surmise that? Because you can't land in Arizona, where the earth's skeleton is exposed to view without getting into geology, Big Time. Of course we located a geological map of Yavapai County forthwith, which showed faults all over the hills.

Plus: I used to serve as my mother's travelling companion on summer escape flights to and from Phoenix and her sister's house in Victoria BC. This took me many times over Nevada and desert Oregon, which is an absolutely amazing terrain. Thus I came to read Basin & Range, by John McPhee. All about the Nevada landscape and how it came to be. A must read for any Westerner. Bro, who had been a petroleum geologist in his career days. picked up my copy while he was here visiting & found it both entertaining and educational (his degrees dated from the days just prior to the plate tectonics revolution).

Which led to buying him the complete McPhee treatment of geology across the USA along the 40th parallel. And an extra copy for good measure, namely me. It's called Annals of the Former World. I've been reading it steadily for a couple of days. It's fat. It's fascinating, if bewildering at times; I'm in California -- about finished. That's how I've spent my enforced vacation!

Seeing Stars

The first night my husband arrived in Arizona, he was freaked out by the brilliance of the Milky Way. We came here from Chicago; a narrow corridor aiming out across Lake Michigan was the only piece of comparatively unlit sky where we could get a decent look at the stars and planets. Believe it or not, my first sight of Saturn's rings was inside the city of Chicago!

This is all by way of saying that astronomy was high on the list of reasons that brought us out to these parts. Get a ridge between yourself and Prescott and the seeing can be impressive. Not suprising that we have an active astronomy club here. The recent exhibit at the new, improved library is just one of their activities that range from star parties to telescope making to educational meetings at the library. The last of the spring star parties will be held this weekend at Watson Lake; check the web site above for further info.

There are several private observatories in the Prescott region; I know of one in Hootenany Holler, another up in the Mountain Club area, and photographer/blogger Edward Registrato operates two, one in Dewey and the other in Peoria. When we first moved to the highlands, one of the country's pre-eminent grinders of astronomical glass lived and worked here; we also met a chap who was making interesting refractors back in the aught-80s.

Our most exciting discovery when we settled down on the other side of the Prietas was a comet, a new one that didn't get mentioned in the papers for several days. Our two most discouraging discoveries were 1) the desert dew problem and 2) the chill you can get at night in mid-summer, radiating all your heat into outer space (temp., slightly above absolute zero, which is why long underwear and an umbrella are recommended for long observing sessions -- even in the hottest weather!)

In passing: there's a permanent outer space display on the ceiling at the Booknook over on Gurley Street (above). Marilyn, the proprietor, is an active amateur astronomer and also specializes in astronomical titles.