I pulled over and looked under the car. No sign of hanging metal but a slow roll raised a squeal more often heard in rail yards.  Citing grease-deprivation, the wheel bearings of our  small trailer had gone on strike. As Gail and I pondered the situation I had visions of a full campground and us pitching our tent behind a porta-potty.

     But sometimes you get lucky.  Of all the places we’d towed it this summer, the trailer had blown a bearing not fifteen minutes from the tree farm where I work.  A quick cell call to our maintenance manager, the most amiable Baird Hall, and help was on the way.  To be brief; the little buggy was small potatoes for a guy who fixes tractors for a living and Baird soon had us back on the road with an ETA of about 4 pm.

     Eight miles north of Mount Forest, the approach along Concession 12 was well-posted.  To say the North York Astronomical Association (NYAA) has it’s act together is like saying Isaac Newton was smart.  Having put this event on for the past nineteen years the club has it down to a fine art.  From Internet registration and confirmations; personalized information kits complete with name tags, event schedule, vendor specials, etc. all contained in a red plastic bag - in case you need light covers - and an excellent roster of presenters, they had covered just about every base.  Come to think of it, we only had one criticism but since porta-potties have been mentioned already I’ll move on.

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.          The River Place campground is a couple hundred yards wide and runs for a quarter-mile on the northern plateau of a tree-lined gorge, but the first thing you notice is the rolling nature of the land.  This was further accentuated by tents and telescopes sprouting on every high point flat enough to serve. As we parked on a "possible" to assess on foot the few remaining prime spots Alex Gibson, from Etobicoke, Ontario, noticed our indecision and invited us to set up next door.
     "You won't find a better spot than this," he said, reserving it with his chair while we fetched the car.  He was right.  Level for ten yards, the base dropped off to the south giving us a clear view of that most valued horizon.  Alex was to the west with his friend Dave, and to the east was Lon Dittrick; a nice chap who had brought his tent-trailer and three 'scopes up from Columbia Station, Ohio.

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.      We’d made it to our first major star party and clear skies were forecast for the next four days!  Within an hour the luggage and coolers were in the tent, and the Kendrick shelter-dome housed our 6" dob-reflector.  The ground was hard but, forewarned, we had an airbed and some heavy-duty tent pegs that I'd fashioned out of eight-inch galvanized nails.  We'd also brought  "looneys" (Canadian dollar coins) for the showers.  Now it was time for a beer!

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     As dusk settled, the whirrings and clickings of drives and shutters began to answer the calls of crickets.  We went for a walk-about and soon located a few members of our own club - The Hamilton Amateur Astronomers (HAA).  Camped near the main lecture tent they'd reserved space for Stewart Attlesey's 20" Obssession.  Like ourselves, a few other members had pitched elsewhere but in the crowd of 1100 enthusiasts some were never found.

     When the light was right Venus appeared as if on cue, then Vega, followed by the constellations Cygnus, Ursa Major, Scorpius, and Sagittarius.  Voices murmured in the twilight and sudden bursts of laughter became "Ooh"'s and "Aah"'s as fluorescent green Perseids streaked through the atmosphere.  I brought our computer and eyepieces from the car and plugged the laptop into the lighter socket.  A cool night was expected so the dob went by the shelter-dome door and a chair and small table went inside.

     With a Pentax XL 7mm in the focuser, I used Venus to roughly align the Rigel Quickfinder.  At 171x, the planet was a nice creamy colour and its phase plain to see, however, DSO’s were on tap this night so I switched to the 21mm for a more suitable 1.1° field and 58x magnification.  The Skywatcher had been our mutual gift last Christmas, and, having tagged exactly half of Messier’s objects since then, we were primed for the next fifty-five.

     First on the hit list was M8 - The Lagoon Nebula - and what a way to start!  The white hot stars embedded in a glowing cloud beside a bold cluster wrapped in nebulosity was a riveting sight that drew us back, several times, throughout the night.  A short hop brought us to M20 – The Trifid Nebula – which showed a nice oval shape with a bright pair of stars near the center.  Though the three signature lanes were barely discernable in our modest scope the open cluster M21, in the same FOV, made a complimentary pairing.

     For the rest of the night the log only lists clusters M9, M23, and M62, but the simple explanation - socializing - says it all.  As people stopped by to take a look and chat, we would happily oblige requests for the Ring Nebula, M13 or M31. At times, we would visit the neighbours to compare views and equipment.  If the mandate of Starfest is to bring like-minded people together, then the NYAA definitely gets an A+ here.

     One AM.  The Milky Way stretched across the sky from the Teapot’s spout to Capella.   The North America Nebula, Perseus Double Cluster, and Andromeda Galaxy were all naked eye objects.  According to Cartes Du Ciel, our sky charting program, Uranus made a nice triangle with Deneb and Iota Aquarius (Aquarii ?).  Panning the area I found a point of light larger than the surrounding stars with a more rounded look to it.  It was in the right spot so I claimed the planet just before Gail claimed cloudy contact lenses and a cold nose as reasons for bed.

     I packed up with the intention of watching Saturn rise with the HAA crew but by the time I located their camp they too had crashed. In days gone by a younger me would’ve short-tented the lot of them, but the older me wandered back up the road to where I hoped to find a warm place for my cold knees.

DAY 2