Well, here it is--at last! I hope no one had problems waiting for this account to show up (as if this blog has a readership). It just took me that long to write the thing down properly. After completing it, however, editing this narrative to render it suitable for posting required less than an hour. It follows immediately.


Here begins my account of Sky & Telescope’s Deep Skies & Deserts Tour--September 2003. I did take notes along the way, though of course I fell behind...

After passing through security here for the first time, I took my first turboprop out of my hometown in three years. Had a long layover in [the regional hub], which was OK particularly as I had to cross the entire terminal layout--but then finding an open bar proved less easy. Finally came upon a nice pub; by the time I was done there & at a fast-food outlet, my 757 to Phoenix was well into the loading process.

Boring night flight. While my (borrowed) suitcase may have been one of the first to appear at Sky Harbor, the weakest link followed: catching a taxi to my early-arrival hotel, since it was too late for a shuttle. Despite the hour, the heat hit me first thing. (For the record, this was billed as the end of the monsoon season here.) Someone gave the driver directions, but the place turned out not easy to find, hidden behind trees... (Incidentally, it seemed my plane may have been packed with Packers fans attending the next day’s game with Arizona.)

Late next morning the actual tour began, most of the participants gathering as planned in this hotel’s lobby, where we met one of Sky & Telescope’s editors, Paul Deans; he’s evidently been at the magazine three years & I don’t recall any more specific description of what he does. Then there were the agency people, including the bus driver. I’m not sure of the number of participants, but it appeared not to quite reach the advertised minimum of 16. Anyhow, our first stop was the airport, where two more joined: a Michigander & one of two Brits--though this latter guy, an investment analyst, had long lived in Japan. (The other Brit happened to be named Newton.) The Midwesterner came to reveal a penchant for collecting rocks...Then there was the Mexican father-son duo.

Lunched at a nice barbecue place. Our leaving for the tour’s first destination then was postponed because the bus’s air conditioner failed. We wound up at a sort of open-air mall in downtown Phoenix waiting for the vehicle’s repair or replacement--in a word: Hot...We were stuck there maybe two hours, & it proved not our last bus trouble, though it’s the last I’ll say about it. Drove southeastward to the campus of the quasi-notorious Biosphere 2, currently a satellite of Columbia U--till the school pulls out at the end of this year.

Turned out the facility hosts academic astronomy studies. After dinner we attended a presentation by a Sky & Telescope lunar specialist. [I think his new moon book has just come out.] Then we had our own chance to peer through available telescopes, including a 24” mounted in a dome. Earlier that evening, despite a little remaining twilight (not to mention light from creeping residential development the locals here complained of, advancing from relatively nearby Tucson), I could already tell that the view from here at some 4000’ showed more of the finer structure along the Great Rift than what I’m used to seeing. I believe it was Mr. Newton who told me he’d never seen the Sagittarius Teapot before. Scorpius, crawling sideways, appeared immense. Eventually I looked at Mars & M57 with the domed scope.

Woke around 4 AM & went out on my little patio to gawk at Orion & Co. In contrast to the splendid summer Milky Way we’d admired, its winter span got washed out by the waning moon--which, Mr. D. later said, is typical...

Toured the Biosphere itself next morning. About all I set down about it was that it might have impressed me more when I was younger. Not that the tour wasn’t thorough enough, taking us through the basement & an extension.

So: on to Tucson, where there was little time to appreciate our suites before it was back on the bus for the drive west to Kitt Peak, probably the most well-known astronomical site we visited, on the big reservation [west of town]. Well, we were up there for the rest of the day: a long story! Early on we toured the tallest dome (4-meter scope); later we looked inside the famous solar scope at the installation’s other end. Tramped all over. Couldn’t identify much of the vegetation here at 7000’, but I learned a new flower: the source of a dangerous drug used in local shamanism. Mexican jays & a raven at our picnic. [No, we didn't eat them.] Around sunset we were shown a remote-controlled scope operated from someone’s desktop in Florida. After dark the PR people passed out binocs. I guess [our] previous night’s view was so good, it was hard telling any difference unaided. Eventually my group occupied a dome & took turns on the automated 16” scope gazing at various targets. As expected, we didn’t arrive back at our lodgings till midnight.

Interesting historical note: The day we did Kitt Peak marked the end of Galileo’s mission to Jupiter, the rugged probe, running out of fuel, being finally sent into the planet to make sure it never crashed on & contaminated Europa.

Another day, another mountain: The following morning we headed south to the lesser-known Mt. Hopkins. Along the interstate we passed, to my surprise, Arizona’s most famous mission, plus copper-mining residue & pecan orchards. Boarded a school-type bus for the the ride up. The people in the seat ahead of me insisted on opening a window--which allowed one of the big local grasshoppers to fly in & whack me in the head! To the west we could see the reservation’s sacred world-hub sugarloaf [Baboquivari Peak] &, not far from there, Kitt Peak itself, its white buildings clearly standing out in the sunshine. Eventually, gaining altitude, we stopped at a separate part of the installation where an old solar furnace had been set up as an X-ray telescope. Our guide encouraged us to climb onto a nearby roof & check out the instrument’s peculiar optics, which presented us with giant images of ourselves. Someone pointed out the distant site of Mexico’s observatory, illustrating how Mt. Hopkins sits in the middle of this activity--there being another facility in an unvisited place somewhere to the north [Mount Graham]. (Tucson itself is billed as our astronomy capital.) Onward & upward: I don’t positively remember the summit elevation, but it’s higher than Kitt--& stands next to another mountain we were told is the tallest in southern AZ. (Mt. Graham evidently doesn’t count.) A little below the top, with construction going on, we took another vehicle up the steep grade to the MMT--formerly the Multiple-Mirror Telescope & still known by that abbreviation, though it’s been converted to a single adaptive-optics main mirror. After we saw this instrument, some of us walked back to the “staging area,” where we lunched under the few ponderosa. Asking about some purple flowers, I learned another dangerous plant: deadly nightshade. On our descent we were shown what was claimed to be a rare “Apache pine”--allegedly common before the last glacial period--though I couldn’t tell it from a ponderosa.

Skies were clouding from a “feeder band” to a Pacific tropical storm. We returned to Tucson & went on the U of A campus. With some delay we toured the University’s mirror lab, lying mainly under the stadium stands. Here we got what amounted to a privileged glimpse of the new Large Binocular Telescope’s two 8.4-meter (28’) mirrors, officially the world’s largest, in separate rooms. Then it was off to the nearby Image Center, hardly exciting but of major rank as an archive.

At this point I’ve outrun my notes and am working completely from memory. Also at this point comes my tour’s main sidelight--if that’s indeed what it is. It happened that our second night in Tucson was free...


Here I'm cutting a segment about meeting an old classmate--from elementary school into college--& dining out with her. While there's nothing inappropriate to report, merely noting details would in itself be inappropriate: a breach of privacy. However, I'll admit she's the previously-mentioned daughter of the late judge.


So that was Tucson. Next morning I managed to hold up our departure by going late for breakfast, then getting confused by the place’s layout. One of the travel agency people came looking for me & encouraged me to put my cereal in a cup & run. Headed for the state’s north end, losing the abovementioned gal & her husband at a rest stop; guess they went back to HQ, leaving our driver as the only representative. Elsewhere we passed what we were told was the site of the Civil War’s westernmost battle. Lunched at Flagstaff...

No snow on the San Francisco Peaks this time [compared with my first look several years ago]. I’m glad for my prior visit to the Grand Canyon, because this tour’s segment there didn’t impress. Our hotel was allegedly right on the edge of the South Rim, but my room proved to be on the less interesting side. We walked around a bit, our driver/guide pointing things out, perhaps most surprisingly several reintroduced condors which for some reason were flying & perching in the Canyon here just below the tourist facilities...That night Mr. D. led a stargazing detachment down Hermit Road, but a thin cloud layer mostly blurred images unacceptably. Saw mule deer hanging out by the hotels when we returned.

Next morning it was a conspicuous raven outside the window by my breakfast table at the nearby big old lodge [El Tovar]. Meanwhile I’d started coming down with some bloody rhinovirus... Anyhow, we headed east, glimpsing the Canyon partly veiled in smoke. At Desert View we were brought to the tower... officially marking the South Rim’s highest point. Naturally I had to climb it. Some inspired doofus loudly (& cornily) made noise about a “haunted castle.”

On to the Navajo reservation & efficiently-served lunch in touristy Cameron. South to Flagstaff again--& cloudy skies. Here we went through the US Geological Survey offices, previously involved in the manned space program & now concentrating on planetary imaging. As a bonus we got to shake the hand of Carolyn Shoemaker, comet hunter & widow of Gene, who works there. [Carolyn, not her late husband!] Then the “star party” scheduled for that night was canceled due to overcast...

Next morning we drove east to the famous Barringer Meteor Crater, which is maybe a bit closer to Flagstaff than I’d realized...The cold I’d caught was already complicating elevation changes--fortunately, it proved, not too much. One curious feature about the Crater is that its scale is difficult to gauge from appearance. Eventually we joined some other tourists for a guided walk around part of the rim. Happened to be a sub shop in the visitor center; I ate half a tuna sandwich with Mr. Newton, who revealed that he’d scarcely been to the States before. Headed back toward town, stopping at Anderson Mesa, an apparently raised section of the area’s piney woods favored by astronomers & studded with domes. A guy came to show us around, giving us a glimpse of the biggest scope before taking us through the big new interferometer installation.

That night we enjoyed an excursion to nearby Mars Hill & the Lowell Observatory, Arizona’s oldest. Our primary host there turned out to be a gal we’d chanced to meet as she left some work at Anderson Mesa; now I had to compliment her on her new BMW convertible. The main attraction here is the antique 24” refractor in its old wooden dome; here Mr. P. Lowell himself famously sought life on Mars. [His observatory-shaped tomb, as some people know, stands beside the installation.] Appropriately the first target we viewed through this instrument was Mars, and at least part of this gazing was through Mr. Lowell’s original eyepiece (wow!). We also looked through different color filters; the best tint for the Red Planet wasn’t so obvious to my eye. We each took our turn with a series of deep-space objects before ending on Uranus--which happened to be not far from Mars in the sky & appeared as in recent photos, bluish-green & featureless.

Next day we departed via the route down Oak Creek Canyon, the same way [I & other family members] came to Flagstaff before. Descended the Mogollon Rim to Sedona & took the freeway back to Phoenix & Tempe, where astronomer J. Hester joined us for lunch, then gave a presentation on “The Origin of Structure In the Cosmos.” Seems this guy had something to do with the famous Hubble ‘Scope shot of M16 (the "Pillars of Creation").

Well, there was one production left: our last dinner, arranged at a spot in Old Scottsdale not far from our lodgings. I chose the rib, which was revealed as about the biggest cut we’d ever seen. (I may have been the only guest to finish one.)

Somewhere around noon the following day I apparently became the last to bail for Sky Harbor...

Enjoyed a $10 lunch while flying by territory I’d seen before, closer up. Confirmed my impression that the rocks of Sedona form an enclosure. Seated by a port window, I was able to look down on Meteor Crater itself, now amazingly small....


The end. Here are two postscripts, though. While I can't say I was familiar with Jeff Hester by name before this episode, I have noticed him once on TV since, probably on the Science Channel. Meanwhile S & T news informs us that the first Large Binocular Telescope mirror has been hauled up to its observatory on Mt. Graham.