Day 6 - Last observation day

I overslept. I'm ashamed of myself, but i woke up at 1:30 pm. For shame, me. For shame. I didn't miss anything important; in fact, I even had time to grab a small breakfast before Arion rounded us up to bring us to Summerhaven. A lovely little town, although scarred by an unfortunate, uncontrolled forest fire a few years back. The view was nice, although I was cursing it about two roads in. I am ashamed to say that I was ready to quit and head back long before we even reached half way up mount Lemmon. Luckily for me, Arion told us we could head back any time, which (of course) means that I set my brow and forced myself on. Three times throughout the hike up the mountainside, he told me and Melissa to head back, and three times we went "NO!" and Force-Of-Will'd ourselves on (although with frequent breaks). We did eventually make it to the top, although at least 10 minutes later than the rest of the class (sans the students who were smart enough to head back). Arion expressed frustration and concern over Melissa and I, specifically that the trip down would go over a lot of wet, slippery snow. As he put it, "Nobody get's hurt on the climb up."

Luckily, I was able to return to the bottmo of the mountain without incident. In fact, I felt great once I reached the bottom, save a cough that has been developing over the last few days. The only person to slip significantly on the way down was Justin, who I made sure to mock mercilessly. Once we returned to Summerhave, part of the class left to order pizza, the other half (myself included) hit up he local gift shop(s). I purchased a pound of fudge, along with a few other knick-knacks, doodads, and the sort, but I shan't bore you with the details. We gathered up and returned to the dorm to enjoy pizza.

Jupiter team started and finished without incident. I jumped in after and imaged NGC 2024, the flame nebula. I had to win it from Ryan in a FIGHT TO THE DEATH!! (read: coin flip). The images came out fantastic in spite of being black and white, and I'm hoping that it will be a fantastic image.

Saturn imaging also went well; we took 11 videos, ranging through numerous focus'. Three of these videos were longer, two at 1000 frames, and one at just over 3000 frames (1 minute of exposure). It is my hope that Registax will let us pull out the handful of good frames; seeing was rather abysmal tonight. It is currently 4:35 AM, and I am proud to say that I am packed up and ready to leave. I'll be sad to leave Kuiper Observatory, but ecxtatic to return to the reasonable 3,000 feet Tucson.