Stars shine bright deep in desert

Astronomical Society of Nevada, Las Vegas out to share love of space

JC Willette and Jon Zander are a couple of starry-eyed dreamers out to share their passion for space with all of Southern Nevada.

To meet this goal, the duo founded the Astronomical Society of Nevada, Las Vegas, a group of like-minded celestial addicts who gather in local deserts to gaze up at the sky. Some members come packing binoculars and simple telescopes, but for the hard core space junkies, only high power equipment will do.

Zander hauls in a $5,000 telescope that barely fits in his truck bed. Willette brings in a number of units. In spite of the delicacy of these scientific instruments, both men, and really all the other members, are eager to share.

"What would inspire me to let someone near a $5,000 scope? I'm pleased to. When they look through that scope the first time and see something they've never seen before a smile lights up their face and it's like, Wow," Willette said.

"We think it's important for people to know you don't need a scope to come out here with us," Zander said. "You can just come out here and look through ours. Really, I feel like I spent so much on this thing that when I see someone else looking through it it feels like money well spent."

The whole need to share was one of the reasons the society formed. Many of the members belonged to another big Las Vegas club, a club that wasn't as eager to share with newbies.

"They just didn't move fast enough for us. We really wanted to get the public involved now," Zander said.

The club met a few times to get organized before they held their first publicly announced star gazing party at Nelson's Landing out past the city of Nelson. The group plans to reunite on the landing's loop road again on July 13.

To get to Nelson's Landing observing site, travel south on Interstate 93/95 until the split of 93 and 95. Take the Interstate 95 exit and travel south for 9.4 miles until the Nelson road turnoff. Go east on the turn off all the way to the observing site. After 10.8 miles the main street of Nelson will be on the right. Another 1.6 miles there is a gas station on the left. Traveling another 5 miles there is a road to the right that leads down into the valley (do not take this road). Continue straight for 0.2 miles to a loop in the road. This 100-foot diameter circle is the viewing site.

Why drive an hour out to what is arguably the middle of the desert on a Saturday night? Willette insists the reasons are obvious.

"It's very important that you know where you are in the universe," the Henderson resident said. "See that cloud coming in up there? It's not a cloud. It's the Milky Way, our galaxy."

"It's always reminded me of fog rolling in," Zander added.

Willette opened a book of Hubble Space Telescope photos and turned to a photo of the Milky Way. He pointed out that every little speck among the millions and trillions of specks in the photo is a star capable of supporting an entire solar system.

"And you think we're alone?" he asked.

"Odds are we're not," Zander said.

Both society founders say they've been interested in astronomy since they were children. When Zander was 10 a friend of the family showed him Saturn.

"And I never forgot what that looked like. About 10 years ago I bought a small telescope and then I sold a house so I could afford the huge one."

Zander was in the Army when he was sent with 100 soldiers into a pitch black forest for a training exercise.

"Out of one hundred guys, I was the only one to make it out," he said. Zander used the stars as his guide, while the rest of the guys needed floodlights and help.

Willette began gazing at the moon through a gun scope, also as a 10 year old. The images were shaky, so he saw little. It wasn't until he bought his first "go to," a computer guided telescope, that he began to see outside the solar system.

Zander and Willette were joined at the first public star party by other new members like Steve Belew. The Henderson resident has spent the last 12 years designing a computer program called Star Gazer. He's in the process of marketing the program to school science programs all over the country. Belew's colleague, Paul Matuska, came out to check out the stars too.

"This is my first time out here," Matuska said. "Jon kind of showed us what you could see from the city out in front of his house. But out here, I think this is astounding. There are all kinds of things I'd only seen in books and by God, you could see them out here with these telescopes that a normal person could own."

Both Zander and Willette smiled when they heard Matuska's comment.

"The sky's for free and should be shared," Zander said. "There's a star up there for everybody."


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