| STARFEST
- DAY 2
I
awoke Friday morning to a whistled refrain of The Colonel Bogie March.
As it repeated, off-key with the same notes missing, I thought now there's
a happy astronomer and reached for the earplugs. An hour later,
with the tent getting stuffy, I got up to cook breakfast - blueberry pancakes
and Canadian back bacon, then while Gail cleaned up I added detail to the
entries logged the previous night. The Compaq was on my lap when
Jack Verzyden dropped in for a daylight look at the equipment he'd observed
M81 / M82 with. Jack owned a Meade ETX 105 but had been impressed
with our 6" Skywatcher / Pentax 21mm combination. I also gave him
a demonstration of the Cartes Du Ciel software (freeware). The whistler
resumed. Out of curiosity we tracked the sound to a trio of exotic
parrots! Unexpected at a star party, perhaps, but certainly eye-catching.
.
.
Not mobile in time
to catch the morning lectures, we wandered down by the main tent for the
afternoon opening of the vendor stalls. Many dealers are small operators,
their profit margins fairly low; nonetheless most items had been discounted
and customers were plentiful.
.
.
Gail had reminded
me to bring my wallet (what a good wife) but I still managed to walk past
an Orion collimator, Lumicon OIII filter, and a set of Pentax 10x50 binoculars
before I got to George Robert Kepple's table. Along with Glen W.
Sanner, "Bob" is the co-author of "The Night Sky Observer's Guide", a 2
volume set (almost 1000 pages) detailing over 5500 deep sky objects by
constellation. Described as the next generation of Burnham's Handbook's,
I particularly liked the breakdown of what you can expect to see in a range
of scope sizes. At only $69.90 US, no tax or S&H, and signed
by one of the authors it was our deal of the day.
.
.
We attended Stephen
James O’Meara’s talk on astro-drawing. Among other accomplishments,
he was the first to see the recent return of Halley’s Comet. The emphasis of his presentation
was that sketching develops patience and attention to detail. Armed
with paper, pencil, and a rubber (that’s an eraser to you non-Brits), we
also learned about smudging techniques and that an out of focus image will
show you an object's main structure. Though Stephen was very entertaining
our finished creations were less than stellar.
.
.
While we were
in buying mode, Gail picked up a Starfest t-shirt, then it was time for
a brown pop and some sun-spotting. There were 3 nice groupings, in
a line, evenly spaced along the Sun’s equator. The 21 mm eyepiece
was barlowed when a teen wandered over. The entire FOV was white
except for the main (central) group of spots and after I explained what
she was looking at, the girl seemed quite amazed.
.
.
We heard there was
a Coronado telescope with an H-Alpha filter, just over the hill, so we
boogied over. It was rather like looking through a thin layer of
ketchup yet the prominent, looping, flares were plainly seen. Unfortunately,
the scope was on the small side and the view lacked the grandeur I expected.
A bigger scope would, likely, have impressed me more yet I find the fine
detail of a Baader filter just as interesting.
.
 .
New registrants
continued to arrive and even the valleys were getting full.
 ......................
.
Lou and Ollie Darcie,
HAA members we’d only met once, recognized our scope from a talk I’d given
at a meeting. Turns out they are only four sites away. Last
night I’d seen the Swan Nebula through their Meade LX 200 without realising
who owned it. If you’re having fun now, Lou said, you should come
to the Winter Star Party in Florida. Hmmm.
.
Tonight we’re doing
the social thing and make a reciprocal visit to Jack’s site. He and
Kathy are from Huntsville, and for half an hour we spotted satellites and
the ISS. Jack aimed his ETX 105 at the Lagoon and Trifid nebulae.
Sadly, they had to leave in the morning so we gave them our e-mail address.
Next stop was
Alex Gibson’s 8” rent-a-dob. Through the 17mm eyepiece we had a very
nice view of the popular Ring nebula.
.
Over at Lou
and Ollie’s camp, Lou had a bino-viewer in the Meade. Once the oculars
are adjusted for your eyes it feels like you could just fall through the
portal into M22. Lou was having a problem getting them wide enough
but we also saw M11 before moving on.
We came across
a very large Meade apochromatic refractor. Disappointingly, the drive
had stopped working but the owner had an 80mm refractor coupled with a
35mm Tele-Vue. It made for a moderately wide and quite pleasant FOV.
.
Then we saw
the laser pointer. To be able to reach up and touch the stars was
just the neatest thing and we instantly voted it “Coolest toy of the night!".
.
Finally making
the HAA hangout we found several of the gang enjoying the capabilities
of Stewart’s 20” Obsession. Not surprisingly, Cindy Bingham, a newer
member with an 8” dob-newt, had found a mentor in Stewart. As he
explained where the Veil Nebula was Gail suggested he get a laser pointer,
and guess what came out of his pocket. WAHOO! Within minutes,
there was nary a constellation that hadn’t been zapped!
.
I could tell
by the way the Veil Nebula wiggled like a snake right through the FOV that
Stewart had his OIII filter on the 22mm Panoptic. The Dumbell Nebula’s
fainter extensions were well-defined and the Swan Nebula was resplendant
with tendrils. (Note to self – get a nebula filter). The Helix, and
Crescent nebulae also dropped into the light bucket. A carbon star
and one or two small planetary neb's got sucked in as well.
.
A couple of
guys had scored the use of a huge, tripod mounted, pair of Russian binoculars
for the night (see picture above). I got in line for a glimpse of the Andromeda
Galaxy and, Wow! The central core was surrounded by the entire outer
disk and the whole thing was just 30% of the FOV! For some reason the lenses
were tinted amber but that didn’t detract from the view.
.
About 11 pm
a faint aurora materialized as a general brightening along the N – NW horizon
and a few columns shot up about 50°. Later, a whitish oval appeared
and then vertical wash-board streaks slowly rippled through the Big Dipper.
The Perseids were not as plentiful as the previous night but, while looking
through Stewart’s eyepiece at M31 / M32, I saw one streak right between
them.
.
Cindy’s meteor
dance briefly worked: one flashed behind her.
About 1:15 pm
Gail and I called it a night. Warm enough yet worn out, we figured
an extra couple of hours sleep would make Saturday all the more enjoyable.
We said goodnight and followed a pair of red beams back to our tent.
DAY
3
Copyright -
Glenn Muller, 2002
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