Re: Astronomy Festival at Bryce Canyon July 7-10

I found it odd that the evening telescope viewing shuts down at 12:30 AM when the best seeing conditions begin to prevail. Don't they realize we amateur astronomers are sleep deprived photon junkies that stay up more than half the night?

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tomdisco
I found it odd that the evening telescope viewing shuts down at 12:30 AM when the best seeing conditions begin to prevail. Don't they realize we amateur astronomers are sleep deprived photon junkies that stay up more than half the night?

I saw one of their setups during the daytime a few years back. They had telescopes that were pointed at the sun, but with filters.

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y_p_w

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tomdisco
I found it odd that the evening telescope viewing shuts down at 12:30 AM when the best seeing conditions begin to prevail. Don't they realize we amateur astronomers are sleep deprived photon junkies that stay up more than half the night?

I saw one of their setups during the daytime a few years back. They had telescopes that were pointed at the sun, but with filters.

Yep, we do that too although right now there is only one lonely sunspot to observe. Most medium to large amateur scopes use relatively inexpensive "white light filters" which reveal a white disk w/ black sunspots. Some folks have much smaller but expensive dedicated solar telescopes with hydrogen alpha filters that allow them to see granular structure on the Sun's surface and actual flares along the rim.