StarGazing in the Desert

This Saturday, January 25th, 165 people joined the Imperial Valley Desert Museum for its sixth StarGazing in the Desert party.  It was Standing Room Only for IVDM treasurer Steve Benton's talk "Voyager Interstellar Mission: Journey of Discovery Continues", where he shared NASA's newest images from the Voyager Mission.  Then it was out to the telescopes where a beautifully clear sky let us see an amazing panorama of stars.  We saw the Pleiades and Orion's Nebula, but the big hit of the night was Jupiter, which was close enough for us to see its brown belts as well as its four largest moons: Io, Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede. Jupiter has a total of 67 identified moons.


Visitors enjoyed viewing our "40 Frames" exhibit with 40 photographs of Imperial Valley through the eyes of local and visiting photographers.  They also got the opportunity to see sketches of the permanent exhibit the Museum is building and talk with Director Dr. Neal Hitch and Head Curator Anne Morgan about the planned exhibit.  Kids enjoyed an arts and crafts project of button making and coloring, but the telescopes remained the biggest hit with all ages.  "I love stars!" one girl exclaimed.  "I need to get a big telescope like this" another said. "Stars are awesome."

Director Neal Hitch and Steve Benton viewing Jupiter

Hiking with Boyscouts

On Monday, Troop 4076, out of El Centro, visited the museum and took a hike through Shell Canyon to learn about the geology of the Imperial Valley. Our discussions centered around the types of rock created by volcanic activity, then we went to see them. The Boyscouts were thrilled by the towering walls of Shell Canyon, and were surpised by how much evidence there is of recent volcanic activity in the Imperial Valley. Many of the scouts had never hiked out into the desert, but Monday turned out to be a great day to earn a hiking badge.

StarGazing in the Desert- This Coming Saturday!

What are you doing this Saturday? Like stars?  January 25 from 6-9pm come on out and join us for our sixth StarGazing in the Desert party.  At 6:30 our own Steve Benton will be showing us some of his astronomy photographs and give a brief talk on the Voyager Space Crafts and the beautiful moons and planets they have discovered.  Afterwards  look through the telescopes volunteers will be bringing out and enjoy the beauty of the dark skies here in Ocotillo.  Enjoy looking at our current "Forty Frames" exhibit and check out the drawings we have of our future permanent exhibit.  There's no better way to spend a Saturday night!

Keys found at Museum

Keys for a Toyota were found at the Museum today. If you think they may be yours, please contact the museum.

Museum Closed for Thanksgiving Holidays

The Imperial Valley Desert Museum will be closed for the Thanksgiving holidays. Happy Thanksgiving, and we'll see you next week!

Volunteer Archives Curation

After 3 years of inventorying over 23,000 artifacts, we are now searching the archives for information that will help develop the story of the collections - where they came from, how they got to the museum, and what type of information we have to share with researchers.

In pursuit of this goal, we are focusing on our Archives Project. Today, our volunteer Albert helped to kick start this endeavor, beginning with an artifact catalog of the Sun Desert Nuclear Plant Project. This project has appeared in other parts of the museum's archives, and it involved the museum's founder Jay van Werhlof.

As with the inventory of our artifacts, the museum is looking for volunteers to help us explore our paper records. This exciting project will enable us to not only to learn more about our collection, but also about the development of the museum. We are curating Thursday-Saturday from 10-3pm. Anyone interested is encouraged to call the museum at 760-358-7016 and schedule with staff. 

Lab Developments

One of the great tips we received from
our Conservation Assessment Program assessor.

Over the past several months the Museum has received peer assessments as part of the Assessment programs we were accepted into in January. Today the staff tested one of the recommendations made by Dr. Nancy Odegaard, Arizona State Museum's Lead Conservator. 

During her visit in September, I described how we accession items into the museum - using a reversible adhesive and writing numbers to identify the objects - Nancy suggested we type the numbers rather than write them - eliminating the age old museum problem of deciphering handwriting and reading tiny little numbers. A simple but elegant solution.