Friday, March 13, 2009 - City of Rocks State Park, Faywood NM
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Observatory, City of Rocks State Park, Faywood NM, February 19, 2009
Time to hit the road again, back to City of Rocks State Park for a few days.
First State Parks Observatory
A quote from the City of Rocks State Park website:
City of Rocks was first to receive an observatory in the Division. The observatory consists of a 12’ x 16’ building with a roll-off roof and is permanently equipped with a 14" Meade LX-200. The entire facility is solar-powered and will include a 20-inch monitor, which will enable many visitors to simultaneously view the jewels in the night sky, as images are transmitted through the telescope. Click here to find out more about upcoming star parties.
Saturday, March 21
08:15 PM - 10:00 PM
City of Rocks
Star-n-Parks
Join National Public Observatory astronomer Matt Wilson for a guided tour of the spring constellations and planets. Sunset is at 7:15pm and Saturn will be well presented.
Fees: Regular Entrance Fee
Contact: Gabriel Medrano 575-536-2800
Night camp
Site 12 - City of Rocks State Park, Faywood NM
- Verizon cell phone service - fairly good signal - best on west side of the park
- Verizon EVDO service - faster than many places I've camped
- Go to City of Rocks State Park website
- Locate City of Rocks State Park on my Night Camps map
- Check the weather here
Emergent democracy
Culture brings us together, usually at a very small scale through mutual belief, trust and common interest. It educes, not compels, behavior. Culture codified is law. It is as inevitable as the day the night that as scale increases, law increases. Law enforced is government. Government does not, in the main, educe behavior, but compels it. Democratic or otherwise, rarely, very rarely, does any concentration of power or wealth desire to see subjects well informed, truly educated, their privacy ensured or their discourse uninhibited. Those are the very things that power and wealth fear most. Old forms of government have every reason to operate in secret, while denying just that privilege to subjects. The people are to be minutely scrutinized while power is to be free of examination.