Obsessions usually start small. They sneak into your life, and before you know it, you are sucked into doing absurd things. The seeds of my astronomy interest possibly started when I first saw Saturn as a child, through my father’s handmade telescope. I could see the rings around the planet. It was fascinating, a whole visual phenomena that I didn’t know existed.
As an adult, my interest was revived when my then husband got an eight inch Dobsonian telescope. A Dobsonian is a mirrored tube that sits on a swiveling base. It’s simple to assemble and carry around. My husband lost interest in using it, so I took it over. I got a bright star atlas and started looking for things to observe. I learned the constellations and the position of the stars to find objects. Even in my light-polluted back yard, I could see galaxies, star clusters and globulars, which are fuzzy balls of stars. These objects were incredible to look at with the variety of formations, nebulosity and the fuzziness of millions of stars. But after a while, I wanted to see fainter stuff that required the contrast of a dark sky.
This required stepping out of my comfort zone and driving long distances to remote places. I joined an astronomy club, so I wasn’t alone once I got to the site. Phoenix is so light-polluted that a drive of at least fifty miles is required to escape it. I didn’t like driving that far by myself. My husband had no interest in accompanying me, so I was on my own.
The sites always had at least two miles of dirt road to drive on, at the end of fifteen miles of cotton fields after a left turn to nowhere. The roads seemed to meander in pointless directions. At first I would attempt to drive home the same night. This involved leaving the area with no lights on, since white light will invoke extreme wrath and loud cussing from fellow astronomers. Red light is okay, since it won’t spoil a person’s night vision. I gave up trying to drive a car in the dark on a dirt road with no lights because it was difficult to stay on the road if I could even see where to drive. I could possibly go off into a ditch or get lost. I took to sleeping in the car and leaving in the daylight.
Each site we observed at had its peculiarities. One near Buckeye Hills had black helicopters with no lights that flew by occasionally. My guess it was due to the proximity of the Goldwater Air Force Range that the military was checking us out. Other times hunters would send out flares and try to shoot things in the dark. The border patrol checked us out . No one would bother us, but some sites became unsafe to be at due to criminal activity.
One site on Salome Highway near the Harquahala Mountains was memorable because it had a roost of Barn Owls nearby , and I could hear the haunting screeches in the night. It was thrilling to be in that other worldly darkness. One of the members, however, got attacked by a swarm of bees, so we didn’t go there much after that.
The site of the Messier Marathon is an abandoned small airfield near Horvatter Road two miles south of I-10. It is named “Salome Emergency Airfield” on the maps. It looks like it was rarely used, if ever, and it was established in the 1930's. The dirt runways are still there, but are a little overgrown with Creosote. A pilot would have to be pretty desperate to land in this forgotten place. Maybe in the 1930's less concrete existed for landings. Still in the middle of nowhere, it must have been more so back then.
These desert places were always very dusty. It was usually BLM land or a ranch, where cows roamed freely, leaving their cow pies and chewing down the vegetation that kept the dirt down. Any moving car would kick up clouds of dust into the atmosphere that could be seen for miles. My car would be covered with dirt by the time I left.
I usually made up a list of objects to look at. Without a computer guidance system or setting circles on the scope, I had to rely on figuring out where the object was by the position of the stars in the constellation. This was hit or miss and if it was a really faint object, it was mostly miss. Throw in clouds or atmospheric disturbance, it was even more difficult. Actually finding the faint galaxy, star cluster or globular felt like an accomplishment even though it the object might not be all that exciting to look at. Some were amazing, though, making the hunt worthwhile. Some would have a haze of nebulosity surrounding a sparkling star formation. Bright galaxies could have lanes of dark matter running though them. Double star formations could be red and blue. Some nebulas would be ring shaped and green in color. Comets, satellites, meteors with fireball trails were also a bonus.
Sometimes the weather did not cooperate. This is always an iffy factor in astronomy. Loading up a car with all the junk you need is time consuming. Sleeping in a car or tent isn’t all that comfortable. It’s a crap shoot trying to figure out if it will cloud up or be clear. Usually, if I think the weather is going to be crappy, I stay home. The exception is the Messier marathon. People almost always show up, which is not the case with other star gazing dates. If no observing can be done, people stand around and talk. It doesn’t stay cloudy all night most of the time in Arizona. A hundred mile drive is required, so it is hard just to turn around and go home.
This year the weather clouded up and the sky had clear spots at sunset, but the horizon was murky with haze. I couldn’t see the first objects. I had to look at the same areas several times, hoping that the clouds would clear. Sometimes it did clear out and I could see what I was looking for. I have seen the Messier objects many times, but I was reminded how pretty some of them are. I continued this process until I ran out of constellations. I got into the car to sleep for a while. I had on long underwear, jeans, a long sleeved shirt, a ski bib, a coat and another long wool coat. All this, plus sleeping bags kept me warm. It was an effort to get out of the car to look at the sky again.
Being out in the desert at night is strange. I am out of place. The rest of the world is snug in their beds. Or they are traveling on the highway to the north. I could see the headlights that seemed to go slowly only because of the distance. It’s not completely dark. On a good night, I could have seen the Milky Way with dark lanes through it with my naked eye. The stars would sparkle brilliantly. This night a haze dulled everything.
I looked at objects for another hour until I couldn’t see anything and gave up. The warm car beckoned. A mere sixty seven objects was all I saw that night. The next bout of Messier insanity will have wait until next year.
I remember the time we stayed at your house on the way to St. Louis. Your father brought out his telescope and we got to look through it at the planets. It was amazing!
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