AFY Star Party, June 19th, 2004

What a beautiful day! Who could ask for a more perfect day? Temps in the mid-70s, low humidity, just a slight breeze blowing in from the west…these are the days about which movies are made. But would it hold for tonight?

So far this year Astronomy for Youth, Inc, has held public star parties every third Saturday of the month. March was clouded out, April was rained out by two massive thunderstorms, and May was clouded out. What would June hold?

I packed my gear and headed out around 6:50. It takes a good 1 ½ hours to get to Malabar Farm State Park from my place, so I should get there around 8:00. Well, after a quick stop at the Golden Arches for some nourishment, I arrive at the Horseman’s Area around 8:10. The usual suspects had arrived early: Curt & Trisha, Robert, Tammy, Greg and Stu (who would become a member of AFY within the hour). We had our business meeting and visitors started arriving.

I broke out the glow sticks for the kids and managed to sell 11 in the first few minutes. I new these things were going to be a hot commodity, so I’m glad I brought them. Curt started giving a program for the few girl scouts that were there. He turned it over to Tammy to talk about meteors and to let the visitors listen, yes I said listen, to some meteors.

I took the opportunity to set-up my scope (with some help from Robert). Next thing you know, I had Jupiter captured and had more visitors to show our Large Gas Giant to. We could see three moons clustered in a triangle patter on the left side and a lone moon on the right. The visitors thought it was cool, but some mentioned that it looked small. I had the 26mm eyepiece in, the one that came with the scope and the one I use for public viewing, so we weren’t too mag’ed up.

Finally some navigational stars started appearing and we turned on the juice. Hmm, we’ll be using Antares and Vega for our alignment tonight. I usually use a checklist to make sure I don’t miss anything. Robert owns an identical scope, so he helped me with set-up. OK, let’s see if we can track Jupiter now. GOTO. “Object Below Horizon.” WHAT??? No it’s not, we were just looking at it. Ok, what did I forget? Robert asked if the time was set correctly. Oops, forgot to do that. I correct that little problem and we try it again. Still nothing. OK, let’s try re-starting from scratch. After a few minutes and after re-doing the star alignment we are in business. Things are slightly out of the FOV, but close enough that we can find them with a slight adjustment.

OK, back to Jupiter to let the computer track it. A few more folks look and ooh and aah as we can how see stars around the mighty giant. Alright, let’s tune into some cool stuff. M57, here we come. I punch in the commands and the scope slews to the opposite end of the sky. I look in to correct it and what do you know? It’s almost perfectly centered. I show a few of the girl scouts the Ring. They are obviously impressed. We stay there for a bit and let other’s see. Hmm, what next? I’ve been longing to see M51, so off we slew.

The scope stops and I notice I need to adjust a slight bit. Not a problem with the slow-mo controls. There they are. Resolution is fantastic and you can see some great detail in the galaxies and the trail between them. I share the view with our visitors. I think some aren’t nearly as impressed as they were with the ring. Of course, the first time I looked at fuzzy patches of gray, white and black I wasn’t all that impressed either. Oh well.

Tammy now has Comet NEAT in her scope and drawing a fairly large crowd. This gives me a chance to do some hoping around Ursa Major. I’ve been trying to find galaxies in or near the Big Dipper, mainly the Messier objects, with no luck at home. The skies here however are perfect. Ok, M81. The telescope slews slightly, I make a few adjustments and there she is. Beautiful! M82 should be close, but I don’t see it. I start moving the FOV around and try to capture it. Finally I venture out a bit and let M81 slip out of view and there it is…M82. It almost looks like a cigar in the sky. Next I cruise over to M108. My “Year Round Messier Marathon” book refers to this as the Black Eye galaxy due to all the dark dust in its composition. Again the view is spectacular. I do a short hop to M97, the Owl Nebula. It’s much fainter than most of the other objects I have been observing, but you can still see the two dark regions of the “eyes” of the owl.

Greg comes over and sees I am observing in Ursa Major and asks if we can look at M51 in my scope. Sure! We hop back over, I do the adjustment dance and turn it over to Greg. He comments on how you can really see the details of the spiral. His eyes are obviously better than mine because I saw the star trail between the two galaxies, but was having a difficult time making out any detail in the spiral. That’s the benefit of observing with others.

Time for a break I go sit down near Trisha and Tammy and have a Coke. Throughout the night we have been seeing meteors and I’ve probably counted 10 in the past 2 hours. Tammy has seen her fair share, but Trisha has yet to see one. As if the heavens were playing a cruel joke about 5 more appear and streak across the sky while talking to Trisha. Unfortunately for her, they are all behind her back. “Damn it,” she cries out in frustration.

People are starting to wind down and the cold air is starting to become noticeable now that I have stopped moving around. I meander back over to the scope and try to pull up M13. An adjustment or two later it’s as large as ever in the scope. It’s funny because I look at M13 from home a lot and it never looks this large. Up here, where the skies are much better than home though, it looks huge in the scope and you can even resolve individual stars on the fringes. Robert comes over to take a look and jumps over to M92. Wow, not nearly as big a cluster as M13, but it still looks huge under these conditions. Fantastic, absolutely fantastic. I power down the scope shortly after that and get her all packed up. Robert and Curt are gracious enough to carry the coffin back to the truck for me and soon I am all loaded up. I turn on the truck lights to aid Stu in packing up his scope. The difference in vehicles is so ironic. I have a big Chevy 3500, dually, diesel, with a full 8 foot bed to store my gear. Stu has a Harley fat boy and stores the scope and related equipment in the saddlebags. The tripod almost looks like a bedroll tucked in behind the seat.

Soon everyone is packed. We say our goodbyes and head down the road. As I am passing the last house on the Farm property a deer goes galloping across the road. Whoa, glad I saw that one and wasn’t going overly fast! As I approach Mansfield I am pleasantly surprised to catch up with Tammy and Stu. We all hop onto 71 south and trek for home. Tammy exits a few miles down the road from us, but Stu and I have miles to go tonight. I take the lead and he follows relatively close behind. I can still see Sagittarius out the window and occasionally glance over. As we approach 270 Stu comes up along side and gives a wave and a honk. I wave back and peel onto 270 west. Fifteen minutes later I am home. Jen is awake and I tell her about the good viewing conditions and the visitors. Tonight was definitely a success.

I’ve often told people that astronomy is like golf. With the clouds, light pollution, etc, it can be the most frustrating hobby you’ll ever take up. But then you get a night like tonight and it’s like hitting a hole in one and you know you’ll be back for more.

Personally, I’m itching to tee it up and take another swing.