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(This article originally appeared in the Q3 2002 STAR newsletter and was written by John Roth. -I)
The
Peach State Star Gaze
By
John Roth
This
year the Peach
State Star Gaze
was held October 3-6 at WhiteWater Express near the point where
Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina intersect. This was the ninth
year for this annual event sponsored by the Atlanta Astronomy Club,
and the first year at this location. The event featured some
big-name speakers including comet discoverer David Levy, star chart
designer Will Tirion, and Sky and Telescope Executive Editor J. Kelly
Beatty. I would estimate that somewhere between 200 and 300 people
attended the event.
This
was only the second star party that I have personally attended. Last
year, I went to the Mid-Atlantic Star Party (MASP), an event much
closer to home. I began the long drive with some trepidation because
the weather forecast was not very promising, calling for partly
cloudy skies with a chance of rain on Friday evening. In fact,
Hurricane Lilly was bearing down on the Louisiana coast just as I was
pulling out of my driveway on that Thursday morning. There was some
possibility that it might turn further to the East of its expected
course up the Mississippi and have a real affect on the conditions at
the site. I figured that even if the weather turned out to be bad,
I’d still be able to hear some interesting speakers, talk with a
number of other more experienced amateur astronomers, and check out
the vendors.
As it
turned out, the weather did significantly limit the number of
productive viewing hours that were available. On Thursday night,
there were only a few “sucker holes”. I found that folks will
try to observe through just about anything at a star party. At 2:00
am I could hear a couple of guys near where I was setup who were
still up and about, so I got up to check out the view, just in case.
All I could see were a few “stick figure” constellations down to
about 3rd
magnitude – no hint of the Milky Way at all. Yet they were out
there, trying to accomplish something. Friday morning we had some
gusty conditions thanks to Lilly. I had to take down stuff to avoid
having it blow away. Friday afternoon brought rain, but shortly
after dinner the clouds began to thin out and it began to clear up
just as the sun was setting. The mood really changed about that
time! Even though the forecast was still quite dismal, everyone was
quickly setting up. Just as it was getting dark enough to begin
serious observing, some high cirrus clouds came in and put off the
viewing for about an hour. We actually did get about an hour and a
half of viewing in before the clouds finally took over for the night.
Saturday night looked much more promising. We had some cumulus
clouds occasionally pass through, but the skies were workable, if not
great. I observed that night until 1:00 am. The skies remained
clear until about 3:00am, but the dew was intense and I had to make
the long drive home the next morning. I woke up Sunday morning to
some intense fog. There was no chance to dry things out before
breaking camp, everything went home wet.
According
to my GPS, we were at about 1720 feet elevation. In general this
site was not as dark as I hoped it would be. There was a significant
light dome just East of South, which I was told is due to Atlanta,
about a 2-hour trip away. An even brighter light dome shown to the
West that was presumably from Chattanooga, about 60 miles away.
There was apparently a small airport nearby to the South because we
saw a periodic flashing “search light” every so often. There was
a lot of airplane traffic at this site. Apparently there is a flight
path between Atlanta and places North that crosses East of this sight
at about 45-50 degrees above the horizon. In general, I’d rate
this site as significantly better than BigWoods, but not as good as
MASP. I think many of us prefer our best skies to the South, which
isn’t the case here.
The
accommodations at this Star Party are better than at MASP. We had
real showers and restroom facilities! We had to pre-pay for food –
you couldn’t change your plans once you got there. Meals were
served according to a fixed schedule. Breakfast was at 8:00 am! If
I had done some serious observing most nights, I doubt I’d have
made it down for that meal! We had an option to camp out on the
observing field or stay in cabins. I chose to sleep in my tent out
on the field. I didn’t think to check out the cabins to see how
nice they were. There was a very nice lodge that was used as a
lecture hall, but it wasn’t quite large enough to fit everyone who
came.
I was
surprised at how few vendors came to the event. There were only
about four including Wolf
Camera
from Sarasota Florida, Ken’s
Rings and Things,
and Astronomy
To Go.
Tom Bopp was also in the vendor area selling posters of comet
Hale-Bopp along with someone selling meteorites. In spite of the
dearth of vendors, there was a generous supply of door prizes. To my
amazement, I actually won one of the prizes: a Televue 20mm Plossl!
For
me, the highlight of the event was listening to the speakers. The
lectures were held each afternoon between lunch and dinner. I felt
that all of the speakers had something interesting to say, were well
prepared, and had ample experience at speaking in front of an
audience.
On
Friday, Rich Jakiel spoke about advanced deep sky observing. He
discussed a number of subtle features that are often overlooked in
commonly observed deep sky objects. For example, did you ever see
the “propeller” in M13? You better have a big scope. I tried
to see it with my 8” to no avail. I wish Rich had provided a hand
out of these objects, because I could not recall many of them. I
believe he is working on a book that will discuss many of these
objects, so maybe this was just a teaser.
On
Saturday, Kelly Beatty, Executive Editor of Sky and Telescope spoke
about Near-Earth Asteroids. Interestingly, he thinks that comets
might pose the greatest threat, because we can’t hope to account
for most of them as we hope to do with Near-Earth Asteroids. Also,
they may come at us at a much greater speed than asteroids. As a
closer, Kelly gave us a “scoop” on the press release about the
very large Kuiper belt object that was recently discovered beyond
Pluto. See
http://skyandtelescope.com/news/current/article_753_1.asp.
Probably
all of us have used a start chart designed by Will Tirion. Will is
a graphic artist who started doing star charts as a hobby. His early
charts were quite popular and eventually he was in such demand as an
Uranographer that he quit his day job and made a career out of doing
star maps. On Friday, Will gave a lecture on the history of
Uranography. On Saturday he gave a lecture on his own career and the
techniques he employed to design many of his charts, particularly Sky
Atlas 2000.0.
I got him to autograph my copy of The
Cambridge Star Atlas
and Sky
Atlas 2000.0.
Will is uncertain about the future of printed star charts given all
of the computer software available today. Fortunately, he has found
that the demand is still there for his work, thus far. Will also
designed this year’s Peach State Star Gaze Tee-shirt. I plan to
wear it to the next RAC indoor meeting that I’m able to attend.
The
final guest speaker was comet hunter David Levy. I found David to be
a fascinating and dynamic speaker. He is currently working on a
Doctorat degree in English. On Friday he discussed some research he
did for his dissertation on William Shakespeare’s connection with
Astronomy. He talked about references to eclipses of the sun and the
moon in King Lear. I was skeptical going in, that this would make
for an interesting talk, but David brought the subject to life. On
Saturday, David talked a bit about his comet work and his personal
relationship with Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker. I got David to
autograph my planosphere – which he happened to design.
I was
the only person at this event from that Raleigh Astronomy Club. I
didn’t expect to run into anyone I knew, but as soon as I got to
the registration table, I met Donovan Conrad. Some of you may
remember Donovan. He was a member of RAC for a short period earlier
this year before he moved to Atlanta. He is now an active member in
the Atlanta club and he introduced me to a few folks from that club.
Just before he left Raleigh, he was in the process of buying an LX200
GPS. He had his new scope with him at the party.
I
encountered folks from various places: Atlanta, Tampa, Gainesville
GA, Chattanooga, Greeneville SC, Columbia SC, and Huntsville Alabama
to name a few. There was one person from Greensboro who I expect to
see at MASP next month. Like me, he was the only one from his club
to show. There were a number of others attending the party who also
had Orion SkyQuest scopes. A number of them came by to chat about
their experiences with the scope. I got to see some interesting
modifications that others have made. One lady had a 2’ high
platform that she set her Dobsonian base on to give it more height.
The platform raised her scope so that when she looked up to zenith,
the eyepiece would exactly meet her eye while standing. She and
another owner had rigged up home built drives to allow their scopes
to track. Apparently, you can buy kits for this.
On
Friday, I splurged and bought a Nagler Type 6, 9mm eyepiece from Wolf
Camera. This wasn’t exactly an impulse buy, as I had been thinking
about it for a while. I’ve struggled with the short eye-relief for
my shorter Plossls. My astigmatism is bad and I can’t really do
decent observing without my glasses. Last spring at BigWoods,
Donovan let me use his Nagler of this type for the entire observing
session, and I found it to be a huge improvement. On Saturday night,
someone named Jim from Greenville, SC let me try out his Orion Epic
ED-2 14mm eyepiece. This eyepiece has 20mm eye relief and seems to
be of pretty good quality. I saw pinpoint stars right to the edge.
The apparent field of view is 55 degrees. While it doesn’t have
anything like the wide apparent field of view of a Nagler, it is
pretty good, and I might have saved myself a lot of money.
The
weekend before the star party, I built a couple of “dew covers”
for my observing tables. These are free-standing structures made of
½-inch PVC pipe. I cover them with small tarps and set my tables
under them. They can be quickly assembled and disassembled and are
easily portable. They are fairly low profile, so that I can have the
tables fairly close to the scope without obstructing my view near the
horizon. I received a number of positive comments about this setup.
Unfortunately, when the dew was most intense, my star-maps still got
wet sitting under these covers. I’ll be bringing them to MASP next
month.
While
this wasn’t the greatest weekend of observing I’ve ever had by
any stretch, I came away with a lot of interesting ideas, some new
gear, and had a great time talking with other Astronomy enthusiasts.
I suspect that this is as much a part of the star party experience as
the observing. If all you really want is a really dark sky and time
to focus on your own observing program, you might be better off going
on a private expedition to a favorite dark site. But if like me, you
are still learning the ropes, attending a Star Party can be a great
way to learn from the experts and see new things.
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