Lockwood Custom Opticsat the Winter
Star Party 2018
An alternative site hosts after
a hurricane damages the Keys site |
A star party is what you make of it. Every year I look forward to seeing the people that I usually see at an astronomy event. Only seeing them once a year, I often forget names or they are not on the tip of my tongue, but the faces are always familiar, and conversations start back up almost as if no time has passed since I saw them last. This year would be no different, but it would be in a bit different location that we were used to. Before I go any farther, I will mention a a name that I will definitely not forget - Howie Glatter. I must say how much I missed Howie, who passed away fairly suddenly in 2017. His presence was always a significant part of the Winter Star Party for me, and though his widow attended, it was not the same and never will be. It's not the same event without him. We miss you Howie, and we always will at future events under Florida skies.  I was anxiously watching the TV coverage as Hurricane Irma paid a most unwelcome visit to the Florida Keys in September 2017, and it did a tremendous amount of damage there. I was scouring the internet to find photos or video of the middle and lower Keys, and the news was not good. The normal site of the Winter Star Party, a Girl Scout camp, was heavily damaged, and it was announced later that the star party would be moved to the Chiefland Astronomy Village (CAV) for 2018. Having visisted there many times to see friends, I was a bit sad to miss the Florida Keys experience for a year, but I was happy to still have an excuse to head south. I had offered to give two talks to help fill the slots of a displaced star party with fewer attendees and speakers than usual, but that was fine with me, and that offer was accepted. On a Saturday morning I left home and headed south, and encountered the state of Tennessee completely saturated in rain and impatient drivers who don't know how to drive in any lane except the left lane, and who seem to require a distance of roughly five feet from your rear bumper in order to help them maintain a constant speed and to see where the road is...... .....even in the pouring rain. Perhaps by the grace of some deity, or perhaps through my dedication to safe and efficient driving, I made it through with minimal delay due to accidents and water on the road, and I was never so happy to see Georgia in my life because that state contains a blessing that much of Tennessee has not found necessary, useful or logical yet - three lanes of interstate. (Of course this means two lanes for the tractor trailers to take four miles to pass each other, and one lane for smaller vehicles to pass them.) Through spotty rain I made it to my hotel in south Georgia and had a good night's sleep before making the much shorter drive to Chiefland, Florida that morning and early afternoon. I stopped off in Chiefland for a smoothie and salad, and then headed to Walmart to stock up on groceries for some meals for the week. Then I took the short drive to CAV and joined friends on Sunday afternoon. It was a sunny afternoon, but that gave way to rain later on, and we gave up on the possibility of observing. The evening was spent calming down a stressed-out friend by tasting some beer on the porch. Shorts and sandals were acceptable attire, and it was great to see my local friends.  If you don't get clear skies in Chiefland, at least there are fellow friends and astronomers who are in the same situation and who know how to make the best of it. There is also usually some sunshine through the clouds, warm temperatures, humidity, green grass, warm breezes, non-frozen water, and tasty beverages, and that was better than the alternative at home in Illinois. The humidity feels great as it starts to make your winter-dried skin gradually go away. Monday dawned cloudy, and that gave way to rain. At least it wasn't snow. We headed to ABC pizza in Chiefland for dinner with friends and made the best of it. It was cloudy that night, a bit more beer tasting followed, and then we had a tremendously restful sleep with the sound of a light rain on the roof. Tuesday dawned cloudy, but those burned off and it was a dry, sunny day. The job of the mid-morning was to help Tom bring his radio antenna down safely without damaging it. Tom is a HAM radio guy, and Irma had done a number on one of his antennas. With the help of many people and an electric winch, we lowered the radio tower safely and repairs were made. When I came back later, it was already back up and secured. After lunch, I gave my first talk on this day, and the subject was nightvision used for astronomy. After that, I checked out the observing field, and found these guys. That's Dirk from InfiniTees on the left, Jon Joseph from Starlight Instruments in the center.  Here's what the observing field looked like early on, there was plenty of room.  With the nice weather, I took the opportunity to go for a run in the sunshine and nice breeze. Normally I don't run, but I do when on a winter vacation in Florida because the warm weather is very motivational, and I need to get some exercise due to all of the food that one might consume. When I got back, I saw that Pat was ready for imaging, but the clear skies would not last.  An apparently clear Tuesday evening turned into solid clouds as the sun set, as can sometimes happen here. We blamed Pat for this. We spent another evening socializing and complaining about the clouds. Wednesday was an improvement. After a sunny day, I stopped by the Crowleys' for a tast of chili, and then went to visit Dirk, Pak Sun Glatter, and others on the field to have a memorial dinner in honor of Howie Glatter. As she had many years before, Pak Sun had made potatoes, veggies, and Korean beef BBQ with red bean paste. We toasted Howie with soju and other beverages and then we headed off as the finally clear skies gave way to darkness. Skies were clear and dark, and we where thrilled to observe, finally. It seemed darker in Chiefland than previous years, others commented on it, and I'm not quite sure why, but I'm not complaining! We used a Gen3 white phosphor nightvision monocular in Larry's 32" f/3.6 (my optics) for a large part of the evening, and marveled at the detail that was visible through it, especially with a narrowband h-alpha filter to make nebulae appear out of nothing. Some sample images are included below. The images were taken by me by carefully holding my Canon G15 camera up to the eyepiece and taking a 1-second or shorter exposure. These are fairly representative of the view, though I must say that the objects did look "better" and more detailed to my eye than the images convey.     Additionally, NGC 2440 showed nice interior detail with the h-alpha filter, and we observed IC2177 (the Seagull), IC443 (the Jellyfish), and IC 405 (Flaming Star). The Crab Nebula was very interesting and showed filaments with an h-alpha filter, and the Eskimo showed fantastic detail with the same filter. I also tried an O-III narrowband filter on the Eskimo, and it showed different detail, but was not as interesting. As we observed, fog began to form and move and re-form all around the observing field. It would come and go in an eerie and unpredictable manner, drifting on almost imperceptable winds. We moved from Larry's observatory to the back field where the star party was, and observed with Tim Khan's huge 8" f/9.0 refractor. With a slower telescope, the nightvision unit did not provide images that were as bright, because the nightvision unit effectively acts like an imaging sensor or film - the faster the f/#, the brighter the image. Still, we were treated to some excellent view of may objects to substantially lower power than the 32". I came back to Dana and Doris's around midnight for a snack, and then ventured back out to visit and observe with Harry and his 20" telescope before fog came back in. Eventually it set in quite thickly, and we were done observing. I went to sleep around 2am. On Thursday I spent an hour trying to coax nuts and bolts into place to reassemble a balun (electrical component, a type of transformer) for Tom's antenna. After succeeding at that, it was time for lunch, and then I gave my second talk about how I make mirrors and some of the important steps in the process. I listened to a bit of the next talk before I had to catch my ride to dinner. Talks were done in a large shop building, which was set up very nicely for the event. The talk below was earlier in the week, and was an excellent and very interesting one given by one of the scientists involved with New Horizons, the spacecraft that flew by Pluto recently.  In the next image Tom and Tippy are listening to the talk as some guy with a camera distracts them by taking pictures.  Well, even though we weren't going to the main Florida Keys, we could still visit Ceder Key, which is only about a 25 minute drive from CAV. It is a much less crowded island with restaurants and sea breezes. We had dinner at the Big Deck Bar and Grill.  By a small miracle they had an Innis and Gunn Stout on tap, which was excellent. Dinner was great too, and with the combination of good beer, food, and company, we got a nice bit of the Keys feeling without having to drive the extra 8+ hours down there. I had snapper and fried shrimp, and it hit the spot (below right). Tom enjoys a fried shimp sandwich entirely too much below at left.   Another view of Cedar Key is below. It can be captured in a few images, unlike the Keys that are 90+ miles long. It's a nice relaxing hidden gem of Florida.  With full stomachs we drove back, watching the weather carefully. Dana opened his dome and we observed until around 9pm, and then it clouded up fully and for good. Friday came, and we went back to ABC for their lunch buffet which would keep us full until after dinner. I went for a run before dark to burn off some of those calories, but not nearly all of them. Though it clouded up at sunset, we were persistent in checking the sky conditions, and it cleared for about 1.5 to 2 hours. We observed at Larry's again before clouds came back at around 10pm. We convened another beer tasting and bull session with friends and crashed around midnight after having a very fun evening. At this point, I realized that this was the first star party that I had not taken a single image of night-time observing or the night sky. I was too busy trying to enjoy the clear skies when they appeared to deal with a camera. Pat also was completely skunked in his quest for astro-images, but no doubt he will make up for it with his new property there. On Saturday it was time for me to depart and head farther south and east to the Palm Bay area to visit relatives for the weekend, and then do some waterskiing on the east side of Orlando. If the Florida weather disappoints for astronomy, there are always many other things to do to keep one occupied and entertained. Of course, on the way to my relatives place I had to stop by a couple of beverage stores to look for beer that I couldn't find in Illinois for myself and some friends. I was highly successful at this. After my trip was complete, I came home to one of the coolest springs in recent memory, and multiple snowfalls before it finally transitioned straight to summer in the span of approximately one week some time in late May. I was thankful to have had some warm weather and water to get me through to the northern summer. |
As I finish writing this particular article, I am very, very late doing it due to work that has needed to get done, a shop addition that is temporarily mired in the mud of too much summer rain, and other fun summer activities. Much of the beer that I couldn't find in Illinois and bought back with me is still on my shelves for the purpose of ageing, waiting for a bit longer to be enjoyed. I am hopeful that the repairs to the Girl Scout Camp will be complete enough to host WSP 2019 under steady, clearer tripical skies only feet from the warm ocean, and the southern objects a couple of degrees higher in the sky. Clear, dark, southern skies, warm weather, good seafood, good friends, good seeing, and cheers. See you at WSP 2019. -Mike Lockwood, Lockwood Custom Optics |