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After chasing the lunar eclipse near White Sands National Park, I immediately continued my drive west, bound for Phoenix to visit my friends for a few days.
Yes, I drove eight hours to Phoenix after being up all night watching the eclipse – but the five hours of sleep prior worked wonders, and I was actually awake a full 22 hours by the end of the day–which is nowhere near the longest I’ve ever been awake (maybe not even Top 5); that award goes to my spontaneous trip to NYC with a friend in 2012, during which we were awake nearly 48 hours.
Thank yoooouuuu, Megabus-when-you-could-still-get-a-ticket-for-a-dollar.
Leaving Phoenix, I arrived in Sedona on the afternoon of March 7th, ate dinner, and set up sidewalk astronomy uptown. Being the very start of spring break season, the sight of the telescope immediately attracted a crowd of visitors, even in the brighter pre-sunset skies.
Let’s go on a quick tangent: as I travel around the United States, it’s so interesting to see the mentalities of people you meet in different cities and towns doing sidewalk astronomy. I did sidewalk astro in St. Pete for years before taking it nationwide, so A LOT of locals know me. On the other hand, something like 60-70% of passerby will ignore the giant telescope and ALWAYS FREE sign (among other displays I have). Or, when I set up in daylight and find Jupiter or the Moon, even if the sign says people can come look, I find that the vast majority of people don’t stop until it gets dark due to the misassumption that telescopes can only be used in the dark.
Most of these trends hold true in Sedona, too. What I find, however, is that people visiting in Sedona will stop at much higher rates during daylight hours than other cities. I wonder if it’s because Sedona and the surrounding region have the astronomy connotation built in, and therefore a greater percentage of people are attracted to the telescope during daylight hours as a result.
(Edit from Thursday morning before this newsletter is published: on Wednesday night, March 11th, only 52 people stopped at the telescope, while more than 250 walked by, completely ignoring it. Eight years of doing this with nearly 300,000 visitors, and people’s chronic incuriosity never ceases to amaze me).
Anyway, all of these are trends I tend to see as I travel. I have dozens of little juxtaposed observations I could go on and on about.
Sunday March 8th saw the same effect: a crowd of people gathering before I even have the telescope ready.
March 9th I took the day to hike the highest point of Sedona: Wilson Mountain, peaking at just over 7,100 feet. With a 4.5-mile out-and-back trail (plus another 3.5 miles if you trek out to the North Canyon Overlook), this was a satisfying hike that provided spectacular views of the main Sedona region, with nearly every feature of Sedona visible, from all of Oak Creek Canyon, over to Mund’s Mountain Wilderness, Bell Rock, Cathedral Rock, and an amazing view of the Sedona Airport from more than twice its height. Pretty neat stuff.
Watch my 60-second Wilson Mountain Hiking Video.
Despite the sunny morning and afternoon, storms were in the evening forecast so I had no intention of hosting sidewalk astronomy on the 9th. And wow, did the storm hit. Quite literally thought there was a tornado with how windy it got.
This is why I use three separate weather apps and live satellite cloud imagery to determine the forecast.
But! Tuesday night came, and even with clouds in the forecast, I wanted to be back on the sidewalk, because with only a short time in Sedona during this stint (a total of only 4 weeks in town until the end of May) I want to reach who I can and have conversations with people who would otherwise pass through without the interaction.
And wow, did that happen.
Jupiter was visible for the first 45 minutes or so, from 630pm to 715pm-ish. But even with cloud cover overwhelming the night sky from that point forward, you have to remember: my sidewalk astronomy isn’t for the stargazing; it’s for the conversations and storytelling.
Two notable instances of the night:
- A little girl and her mom and grandmother came multiple times from daylight through dark, and at first the daughter was shy, but her attention was captivated by the telescope, and each time they returned, she would eagerly jump forward to look through (and yes, she did get to see Jupiter and the moons the first two times!)
- The second instance occurred right as I was packing up around 845pm, but lasted nearly 30 full minutes: a group of women was walking by and stopped to chat with me. We ended up talking about different celestial events throughout the past few years, and several really cool ones happening in the year 2040. I showed them pictures of Saturn and the Moon in an occultation, how Jupiter and the twins of Gemini have changed in the past three months, and shared stories and videos of the past major eclipses. They left in wonder, with one of them saying, “I don’t know much about the stars, but those were some of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.”
Like I said, I knew there would be clouds on Tuesday. But had I not shown up, that girl wouldn’t have kept coming back and pushing out of her shell a little bit, and those women would have walked on by without the half-hour of stories we shared.
Sedona is by no means a busy town for sidewalk astronomy. I easily see 200-500 people in a night in St. Pete, or 200 in a night in San Diego’s off-season, but I only get 50-100 on any given night in Sedona (and get 2-3 private events a night during peak seasons). But with people stopping, you can have those conversations, share those stories, and be a point-source of passion and inspiration within the community. It is those moments that bring us together, that get us talking and creating positive interactions, that create stronger and more resilient communities, and leave impacts on people’s lives.
Sure, telescopes and clouds don’t mix. And if the viewing will be too bad (or raining altogether), yeah, I’m not going out. But stargazing isn’t the primary reason I’m there. As I’ve said at the bottom of previous posts: the telescope is the magnet, and the conversations are the purpose.
This world is beautiful.
Alex
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