The star gazing area is "unfinished". I use scare quotes because honestly I don't see a reason to build anything more than was already out there--at least for our purposes. It was a big field that gave us visibility of the sky almost all the way down to the horizon. Here's the Google satellite images of the field we were in:
The circle in the middle is a kind of henge they've built and intend to use as an amphitheater. I didn't get a good look at it, but it appears to be modeled after a big sun dial or maybe even a solar calendar similar to Stonehenge. It's unfinished, but from what I gathered from the various park personnel it will end up housing a larger telescope owned by the park for visitors to control via electronics.
The structure directly east of the amphitheater appeared to be a barn of some kind, potentially used in conjunction with the equestrian trails which entered in the northeast and southeast corners of the right paddock. It was in disrepair, though; a broken window or two and I recall the barn doors didn't seem well mounted, as if opening them might break them.
It's worth noting that this area of the park requires a permit, albeit a cheap one. For my dad and I, we paid a total of $14, which included the park entrance fees. The left paddock with the amphitheater was actually locked. The front office had to send a ranger down to unlock it for us.
Once we were in and set up, it wasn't until 9:30pm before anything was very visible. Saturn was the first look we had, which looked pretty similar to my first serious viewing. Very bright and very clear. However, I've been using my 10mm eyepiece with the 2x Barlow lens and I've been noticing some smudging and smearing of the image. I'm almost convinced it's a low quality Barlow, but I could be mistaken. I might look into buying a new one at some point. Well, actually, I might just buy a nice 5mm lens and be done with it.
The ranger drove up probably around 10:30 or 11pm. I suspect his official business was making sure we weren't up to no good, but his real purpose is because he's a closet astronomer. He had some knowledge of constellations and such, which he was happy to show us.
The ranger pointed out a star he thought was interesting. I don't recall the star name, but it was a bright one and even by the naked eye it changed colors randomly. It would be blue at one moment and then it was phase red. He said he saw it in a higher power scope one time and it looked like a kaleidoscope.
I'm fairly certain that what he was showing us was the atmospheric disturbances of the starlight. The star was definitely lower than 30 degrees from the horizon, which meant we were seeing it through lots of atmosphere. I confirmed my theory later than night when we found another star behaving the same way. What is odd is that this behavior isn't apparent in all stars near the horizon. I suspect it's either the natural color of the stars or the fact that they're particularly bright (or both) that causes the affect.
We also saw the Andromeda Galaxy. This is roughly what it looked like through my scope:
Actually, my scope showed a flatter blur; the central orb of the galaxy didn't really resolve. It was also fairly dim, even through my 25mm eyepiece. I didn't bother trying to look at it through higher magnifications. I could say it was disappointing to see it as a smudge, but honestly it made me eager to get better at astronomy so I can justify better equipment.
It is a little frustrating that I bought the telescope to see planets and all of them except Saturn are below the horizon for at least a few more months. Hopefully this winter won't be so miserable at night to prevent some stargazing when they're around (and some winter constellations and objects are out and about).
The waning quarter moon was absent from the sky all night. When we left at 12:45pm, it wasn't even glowing on the horizon.
As a side note to all this, we saw more wildlife than I think I've ever seen camping. Ever. First, while we were hiking around, we saw at least three deer. Then while sitting next to the car waiting for the sun to go down, we saw a lone javelina. I was a little surprised to see how small he was. At the end of the night, we pointed our big flashlights around the field we were and we saw glowing eyeballs all over. With out binoculars, we saw at least three deer bedded down on the edge of the field. Finally, driving out we probably saw 10 deer and another 3 or 4 javelina.
Also, the falls also had a good number of large fish in the small intermediate pools. We even saw some people fishing the ponds (though I don't know how legal that is).
We made it back home a few hours later and passed out almost immediately. It was a long day and night.
