This year at GSSP was kind of a bust. We had rain the first three days we were there and only had one good night of observing. Not enough time to really do any imaging. Here are Jeff, Walter and his buddy, Bill taking refuge from the rain.

Bill in John's shade cave. It was raining but the temps were comfortable. Behind his right elbow is the homemade 3-D printer that Bill built. He gave a demonstration/lecture on it one day in the meeting tent.

My campsite next to Walter's trailer and our club sign.

Just a picture of the drizzle against the mountains.

Lynne hiding out. There wasn't much to do except hang out with the gang under someone's shelter and moan about the clouds :)

The shower trailer. Normally this picture would have lots of other campers and RVs in it. Not many folks showed up until the last two days when the forecast got better. There are usually around 400 folks but we only had around 100 the first 2-3 days.

Fred's Sprinter on the left and Al's RV on the right way out on imagers row (the Oort Cloud).

Al's place. No one set up their equipment until we were sure that the weather would be better.

Fred under his canopy playing with his radio gear.

Back to my place

Al and I pulled gate duty for a couple of hours one day. We check people in and make sure those who go in and out have their parking tag. There is too much valuable equipment out here to just let in people off the street.

Lynne keeping an eye on her and Jeff's gear. Jeff had just driven down to Arizona to pick up this used AP900GTO mount. He had only had it four days when he brought it to GSSP. He got it all aligned and was ready to go in only 30 minutes.

Bill checking out Venus. I accidentally used my flash and Bill got a bunch of magnified photons through his eyepiece. Ouch!!! Sorry, Bill.

John letting another astronomer check out Venus through his scope.

Walter got himself a used AP900GTO just like mine. I think this was the first time he had it out in the field.

"The New Astronomy." Astronomers have now decided that the secondary mirror is unneeded. Just stick your head in front of the primary and you're off and running. :) Actually, Bill was cleaning his mirror.

Yep, that's me. I've since lost about 35 lbs. :)

John enjoying one of our few sunsets this trip.

Fred and Al's hideout again.

Some of us waiting in line for the BBQ feeding frenzy.

Fred did a talk about his radio setup that can grab the transponder data from passing airplanes - match it up with Air Traffic Control data and project it onto a screen. You can then watch as the flight progresses through your area along with all of the flight plan info. Pretty cool!

Fred and I at the Big Valley Fundraiser in Bieber. Every year the valley community puts on a BBQ fundraiser party to raise money for community support programs. This year they got smart and held it at the same time as GSSP. We could buy a ticket for this when registering for GSSP. They made somewhere around $5000 and about half of that was from the astronomers. Beer, BBQ and cupcakes for a worthy cause! :)

Chris, Fred, Me, Al, Bill and Walter.

A toast to GSSP - may we get better weather in 2015 :)