2013 Grand Canyon Star Party

Logo copyright Joe Bergeron

Grand Canyon's 23nd Annual Star Party will be held on both
South and North Rims from June 8-15, 2013.

For eight days in June, park visitors will explore the wonders of the night sky on Grand Canyon National Park's South Rim with the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association and on the North Rim with the Saguaro Astronomy Club of Phoenix.

Amateur astronomers from across the country will volunteer their expertise and will offer free nightly astronomy programs and free telescope viewing.

Visitors will have the chance to view the planet Saturn along with a wide assortment of star clusters, galaxies, and nebulae by night, and the sun and planet Mercury by day. Grand Canyon is one of the best night sky observing sites in the United States because it has some of the darkest skies and cleanest air in the country.

Participants will experience spectacular views of the universe! Everyone dress warmly, since temperatures drop quickly after sunset - even during the summer months.

 

Telescopes ready for night sky viewing.

NPS/Marker Marshall

On the South Rim, events will include a slide show nightly at 8:00 p.m., followed by telescope viewing behind the Grand Canyon Visitor Center. Parking is available in lots 1 through 4, and the Village Route shuttle bus runs every half-hour until 11:00 p.m. To make sure you get a seat at the slide show, arrive a few minutes early.

On the North Rim, telescopes will be set up on the porch of the lodge every evening, with some possibility of daytime scopes available as well. Bulletin boards at the Visitor Center will list additional events such as star talks and special slide show programs in the Grand Canyon Lodge auditorium.

 

Bring a flashlight to make your way safely to the telescope area; red flashlights are best but a white flashlight pointed down and turned off when you get to the telescopes works too. A red flashlight can be made by covering any flashlight with red cellophane or painting the lens with red nail polish or even a red magic marker. For more on why red flashlights are so helpful, click here. Although many telescopes come down after 11:00 p.m., on nights with clear, calm skies some astronomers will continue to share their telescopes well into the night.

 

The event is free (other than paying the park entrance fee of $25.00 per vehicle, good for 7 days of coming and going to either rim.) No reservations are needed except for astronomers wishing to share their telescopes, who register through the astronomy clubs sponsoring the event. Come for a night, or for the whole 8 night-event. Explore the Grand Canyon by day, and the universe by night!

Questions ? Contact us

Park Ranger Marker Marshall


Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association Grand Canyon Star Party Web Site:
http://tucsonastronomy.org/?p=96

Saguaro Astronomy Club Grand Canyon Star Party (North Rim) Web Site:
http://www.saguaroastro.org/content/2012GrandCanyonStarPartyNorthRim.htm

Short time lapse video of the 2011 Star Party by Dean Ketelsen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE09xkuir5s

 

2011 Grand Canyon Star Party Image by Dean Ketelsen.

 

National parks are protective harbors for some of the last remaining dark skies in this country.

The National Park Service has come to embrace night skies as one of the many scenic vistas the agency must preserve.

More information on Natural Lightscapes....

More information on NPS Night Sky Program....

 

Jim O'Connor of the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association,
on dark adaptation of the eye and the value of red flashlights

Humans only need 8 hours of sleep, maybe less, each night but there are more hours of night in most latitudes for much of the year. We tend to live a diurnal life, so we need eyes that can fill our needs both in light and dark environments. To do so, the eye has two types of cells; cones are used mainly for color vision, rods for black and white in low light levels. In daytime we need detail to live our lives, but at night our primary need is threat detection. The rods work best at detecting motion, for night survival. Since threats tend to sneak up from the side or behind, the rods are placed at the periphery of our eye while the cones occupy the central part of our vision. The effect is that at night we can detect motion at the edge of our view. Near the front we don't see so well at night, but if we look a bit to the side objects ahead of us can pop into view. Astronomers call this averted vision, and it is used to find faint objects in an eyepiece.

Rods don't work on their own; they are inert. Their type of nerve cell need a chemical to enable their function. The body does not produce this chemical in daytime. It takes a very low light level sensed by the eyes to produce this chemical called rhodopsin, or visual purple. When the light is detected at a low level for 20 minutes or so, the body starts producing rhodopsin and night vision starts setting in. The other contributor to night vision is the pupil opening, but that goes to maximum within a few minutes of dark exposure. The big player in night vision is rhodopsin, and that takes from 20 to 40 minutes for humans to start benefiting from it. A key trait of this feature is that rhodopsin is photoreactive. It only takes a few seconds of bright light to cause the rhodopsin to decay into two parts with a photosensitive reaction, and the rods stop working. Then the cycle starts again. It is an interesting trait that deep red lights do not trigger the neutralization of the rhodopsin, so astronomers and safety officials use red lights for night lighting to allow night vision to continue. Since, unless the light is monochromatic like a laser, even red light has elements from other colors, even a bright red light can reduce the rhodopsin so a dim red light is best for maximizing after-dark eye behavior.