Lockwood
Custom Optics at the
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Making the best of itAs I finally have a chance to sit down and write this, I am in the middle of an astronomy trip to the Winter Star Party, and a little bit of vacation, in mostly sunny, warm Florida, and I am searching my mind for the proper way to convey to you my experiences at the 2018 Okie-Tex Star Party.It went something like this......  As I checked the weather a few days prior to my departure, I saw some questionable days, but nothing that appeared to be catastrophic to my astronomical ambitions and desires. So, after bringing a variety of optical and addition projects at a suitable stopping point, I got packed up and headed west on Thursday from a very warm Illinois. I had just gone for a slalom waterski lesson a day or two before during a very warm October week in the midwest, and I was pleased that fall had not come early as it had in the previous two years. That morning the last of the concrete was being poured on the east side of my addition, which consisted of a sidewalk and a slab outside of the 12' overhead door. My first stop was to visit friends in St. Louis for dinner, beer, and, most importantly, listening to some music on a good stereo system until it was time to call it a night. I spent the night before heading for western Kansas the next day. Driving on a warm, breezy, sunny day, it felt and looked like summer. My overnight spot was a nice hotel in a very warm and breezy Hugoton, KS. It still felt like a wonderful summer evening as I filled the car with fuel, picked up some food, and walked into my hotel. After a light dinner and a good beer or two, I turned in, and awoke refreshed, but to completely different weather. It was grey, breezy, and cool, and rain was still lingering in western Kansas. I was a little bit concerned, but Kenton, Oklahoma, is a semi-arid region, almost a desert, right? It has to dry out at some point. I headed out at a reasonable hour in the morning, bracing a bit against the chilly wind in the hotel parking lot as I hastily loaded my cooler and suitcase back into my Subaru Outback. It was a very easy second-day drive, only about three hours and I arrived at the star party site on Saturday just after lunch. Fast Eddie, a.k.a. the skilled creator and owner of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, a 24" f/2.75 full-featured, metal-framed telescope, had claimed the site for this year's Lockwood Village, where many of my clients set up next to each other. We have done this for a couple of years now, and it makes the star party even more fun with a variety of medium to large telescope all set up within fifty feet or so of each other.  The weather was partly cloudy and slightly cool as telescopes emerged from trailers, vans, cars, and motor homes. Tents were pitched, RVs set up and leveled, tarps laid down, accessories uncased, telescopes set up, beverages cooled, and all other necessary preparations were made for what we expected to be a fairly normal star party. Doug, his giant refractor, and Christina and her 30" f/3.3 were absent this year due to a very full schedule and other things that had to be attended to, so the village was not quite complete, but we still had a good crowd. Our first beer tasting was on Saturday afternoon under partly sunny skies. As you can see in the photo below (thank to whomever took it for me) there was some nice sunshine, and a pleasant breeze making it a great day to enjoy some outdoor relaxing before what we hoped would be a partial night of observing or more. Perhaps the best part was hanging out with friends again that are usually only seen once per year. We always seem to pick up right where we left off.  After our first Okie-Tex meal, dinner on Saturday, we gathered under partly cloudy skies, attempting to will clear skies over our location. We watched weather sites load on our devices via slow internet connections, and speculated and surmised about how the clouds were thinning and would eventually. As the eternal optimist astronomer always says, "It looks like it is clearing up." As it turned out, we had lots of hope and optimism, but very little clear sky. "Well, damn."You can substitute other four-letter words for damn if you wish, I certainly did. I think it is an apt title for this section of the story because that's basically what I said most evenings and mornings when I popped my head out of a door to see what the weather was like at or nearby the Okie-Tex Star Party 2018.Unfortunately, for the first time in my ten years of attendance (missing only 2012 due an excessive workload that fall), we had a nearly complete rainout and cloudout at Okie-Tex. However, thanks to friends that I never expected to have ten years ago, it was still a fun event. With talk preparation, beer tasting, and evening movies, it was never dull, but by Friday I was ready to get out and head for Deming, NM, to visit the New Mexico Astronomy Village. I thought about blaming Stormy Steve, since he had clearly brought the storms with him the previous year (thankfully those were not continuous, and we got lots of observing in), but it wasn't stormy enough. Another option was to rename him soggy Steve, but I have not officially changed the name as of yet. But I'm considering it. I don't actually remember when it started raining. It became a bit of a soggy, dreary, slightly muddy, heavily-clouded-sky blur, and I was not motivated to take notes to document exactly what type of inclement weather that we experienced each day. Every morning, or even during the night, we would look out and say, yep, still cloudy, or yep, still raining. Sigh. In the morning we'd say oh well, lunch is in a couple of hours, let's go out and see what people are up to. After that there were a couple of hours to kill before the beer tasting at around 3pm. I do remember that a promising-looking first Saturday night clouded up, and when that happens at Okie-Tex, it becomes one of the most fantastically dark places that I have ever been. As someone who is used to walking around an observing field under a starlit sky with no assistance from a flashlight, I had to use one. When the fog sets in, as it did later on, one can get quite lost for a bit if they are not paying attention and lose track of the direction that they are walking! The nights of the star party are a bit of a blur, too. We had intermittent rain, a little bit of fog, and just general cloudiness until Tuesday or Wednesday, when it miraculously cleared for about two hours. We uncovered telescopes and tried to observe a bit, but by the time many had set up, it clouded up again over all of us suckers. 
On that particular evening, we had been enjoying an impromptu beer
tasting, socializing, and morale-improving session in Ed's trailer,
packed in along with a dormant Elvira. Every seat was
occupied, which meant there were at least 10 people in the trailer, and we only stepped outside when the food required us to do
so to maintain reasonable indoor air quality standards, if you know
what I mean. The food at the star party definitely has that
effect on some of us. Snacks were consumed, and empty bottles
accumulated in the sink under red light (photo at right) until the
clouds parted for less than two hours, and
then we resumed tasting when it clouded up. Overall, it was a
most memorable evening of socializing and just generally making the
best of a soggy situation.Another bonus was that we got plenty of sleep since there was no reason to stay up really, really late. The trailer was one site where we gathered when we thought the weather might break, and we wanted to be near our telescopes. It was a bit cool and damp to gather under the more roomy and very recognizable dome tent brought by Tara that has often kept the sun off of us during our afternoon gatherings. The rain did make for some interesting and somewhat rare and beautiful almost-desert scenery, and I took advantage, shooting HDR images when it wasn't raining. Here is the road that leads to the site, looking east from the site exit (left below), and at right is the valley that extends to the west, with the Black Mesa partially shrouded by clouds. It is a rare and beautiful sight, and the silence outside of camp was quite memorable.    Above part of the town of Kenton, OK, is captured beneath the clouds. The observing field is seen in an HDR shot below, with Black Mesa in the background.  On other evenings we made a short drive to some friends' small rented cabin a bit east of the event site. They had a small projector set up, and we could watch movies from a hard drive or other source. Many of us crammed into the very small space and enjoyed the heat and shelter. There were snacks and drinks and there was great camaraderie as we took shelter from the rain, and I heard second-hand tales of bad, very late-night karaoke long after I had left and gone to sleep. One afternoon, as has become a tradition, a group of attendees make some absolutely delicious sushi, and their tasting also includes a nice selection of saki. I usually taste a little bit, but I save most of my consumption for the later beer tasting that we start following that. Eventually dinner comes, and we're pretty full of sushi.   We all enjoyed a very nice afternoon, fortunately the clouds parted for a bit and we even got to see the sun. This gave us some more false hope that the weather would break.  However, later this afternoon a lone shower popped up and annoyed us just as dinner was being finished, but it resulted in a spectacular double rainbow over the ridge to the east of the site. Unfortunately more clouds and rain came in later.  The radar showed one annoying little shower, of course directly over Kenton and our site. We just couldn't win.  We wanted to move our beer tasting indoors on one rainy afternoon, possibly into the staff bunkhouse since it was raining quite a bit and the tent was too soggy and the trailer was too small. Upon asking if this would be OK, I found, to my complete surprise, that a couple of my fellow bunkmates also were very fond of good beer, and one had even brought an award winning beer that he had brewed himself! This will clearly add to our tasting enjoyment in future years.  It was fun to welcome a couple of new tasters to the group, and they were staff volunteers, so they had been working hard on the event and definitely deserved a nice break most of all. Thanks to all of the staff for the work that they do to keep the event running even in poor weather conditions.  Okie-Tex is one of the star parties where alcohol is not prohibited. I find that there are plenty of beverages at all star parties, but at some sites it is specifically forbidden even though the policy is rarely enforced. We have our tastings in the afternoon, usually, but since we want to observe later, we make sure we don't imbibe excessively. If anything, it can make for a very nice post-dinner nap before it gets really dark. After a long night of observing, I often have a beer before heading to bed. Purists may scoff at this, but I also have great fun with nightvision monoculars while observing, so the purists probably won't like me anyway. Observing should be fun, whatever that is to you. Have fun. And let's face it - for this article, beer tasting and socializing is just about the only thing I have to write about due to the lack of observing and photos of the sky and telescopes. With all of the water and humidity, the internet equipment just couldn't be kept dry, and the star party network was down for quite a bit of the event. This made keeping in touch with the world a bit more difficult, but I couldn't complain too much, it's nice to avoid the world for a few days once and a while. As I write this in Florida, I have successfully avoided Facebook for about two weeks, and it feels wonderful. As usual, I gave back to back talks in the tent, this time on Thursday after lunch. The first talk was about mirror testing, and I discussed an instrument that I recently purchased to improve my testing capability - a 4D PhaseCam 6000 that can measure despite vibration and air currents. The second talk discussed the factors that affect or limit telescope performance, and it featured a visit from Elvira because many features implemented in that instrument helped reduce the effect of the factors that I was talking about. I asked Ed to join in the talk near its end by driving his telescope into the talk tent on a cue from me. Then he could highlight her features live in front of the audience and answer questions. It was a great opportunity to display the work of a great engineer who has built exactly what he wants to observe with. I will not forget the looks of surprise as the telescope was driven into the tent, and I had to get people to move their chairs over so that there was a wide enough aisle! After the talks, we convened somewhere for a post talk tasting and socializing session, and I don't remember exactly where. The photo below was from Monday's tasting, I believe, which was conducted under the always prepared Tara's (yes that's her in the photo) dome tent. Allan Wade and his son Jordan were also present for the event, all the way from Australia. Yes, they came all that way for a rainout, but they had a great time visiting other parts of the US after they left the star party, and we greatly enjoyed their company and patience with the weather.  Another cloudy night followed Thursday night, and I moved to a "B&B" in Kenton, which was basically a nice single-wide trailer. After a good night's sleep with the heat on to keep things comfortable, I woke up, cooked some breakfast, and headed west from Kenton to start my journey to just north of Deming, New Mexico. I encountered a foggy desert landscape that was quite unfamiliar, and visibility dropped enough for me to become concerned that I might be slowed by the weather. Luckily, just west of Clayton, New Mexico, the fog lifted, and I enjoyed picturesque clouds on the rather relaxing drive west along highway 412 to Springer, New Mexico where I picked up I-25 for the bulk of my journey to north of Deming. Taking the shortcut from Hatch to Deming put me only 20 miles from the New Mexico Astronomy Village. After I left Okie-Tex, the star party closed down early because there was some snow in the forecast. The soggy field meant that a tow vehicle was needed to assist some who had become stuck. As it has done in the past, the county road grader was brought out and it pulled vehicles and vehicles with RVs out of the mud. I believe this was done free of charge. Here is one truck and trailer getting some assistance leaving the field.  New Mexico Astronomy Village (NMAV) visitI had convinced Ed and Elvira to join me at a much drier NMAV, where friends has promised Ed a covered RV hookup so that he would be comfortable and fully-powered for his stay. He arrived a day or two later and was introduced to Gary and Vandy's amazing astronomy compound, featuring a new greenhouse containing mutant tomato plants the size of small trees. They were producing a prodigous amount of fruit despite cooler outside temperatures. They *were* practically trees, as you can see in the photo below. Gary has been developing his automated feeding system and was working the bugs out of it.The greenhouse was new in 2018, so he's gotten quite far along in very little time. It is an impressive system and facillity, and as a vegetable lover, I approved wholeheartedly and helped harvest fruit and water plants. Gary just gives me too damn many idea for the future. Since I visited, he has figured out how he willl grow spinach, too.  Below, the photo, taken in Gary's amazing shop, shows, starting at left, Ed and Gary, on the right Tom and Jeannie Clark, and of course Elvira in the foreground with her shroud pulled up to reveal the carbon fiber truss tubes. Shortly after this, Ed lowered the telescope onto the transporter unit and drove it out the shop door to the observing area.  We finally had a nice clear night on Tuesday, and we made the most of it, observing until about 3am before collapsing into bed. Elvira was given a full workout, as was Gary and Vandy's 28" f/4.2 which features my optics. Elvira had my nightvision monocular in her focuser for most of the night, and the 55mm TeleVue plossl coupled to the monocular produced fantastic wide-field views of H-alpha objects. Tom and Jeannie Clark, as well as other neighbors/residents of NMAV, joined us for an epic observing session. FYI, the eyepiece and NV unit are connected with this adapter: TNVC adapter We viewed nebulae in the southern Milky Way even as the moon was still up in the sky. After it set, we moved up the Milky Way through Cygnus and into the northern Milky Way, enjoying every h-alpha complex in glorious detail. Below we see the observing area, which is the concrete pad for a future building, and various residents and neighbors. Elvira, the 24" f/2.75, is in the center, and Gary's 28" f/4.2 is seen by the ladder at right with Gary on the ladder. Obviously Elvira does not require a ladder for most.  We ended the night attempting to see Einstein's Cross, but lacking a good finder chart and being somewhat unaccustomed to staying up so late observing (thanks to the crap weather the previous week), we were unable to locate it in our compromised states, and eventually we decided to split a couple of beers and call it a deserved, productive, and fantastic night. Here is one of my favorite shots with the sky above the observing area and Gary and Vandy's compound. The red structure is the front porch of their house, and the red light behind the telescope is from the shop door. The 24" f/2.75 and 28" f/4.2 are visible at lower left, and the red lights on Elvira's transporter shine on the ground at bottom center, marking its location so we don't trip over it in the dark.  The week was generally cool and cloudy. We made a trip to Silver City to pick up supplies and visit a small brewery/distillery (Little Toad Creek). I enjoy some of their beer and their tequila, their food is good, and prices are reasonable. I had some fish tacos that were really tasty along with an excellent imperial java stout from Santa Fe Brewing. I noted it, and found it later on at a store and got some to take home. I still have some on my aging shelf.  We watched movies on a great home theater. I was able to catch up on movies that I had missed, like the newer Star Treks and Gravity. I almost never take the time to just sit down and just watch a movie, so it was strange but relaxing. I played some golf with Tom Clark on a misty, cool morning. After 9 holes, I was finally warmed up and getting used to my new driver, but Tom declared he was too cold to continue. Really I think I was just beating him too badly (grin). That's what you get from a former Floridian who moved to the desert. I was a bit disappointed, but at least I got to play 9 holes. We headed back to NMAV and later the Clarks came over for a dinner. One day we were working on the metal blocks that connect the pieces of the dome's bottom ring, and Gary's bandsaw was bogging down under the load of trying to cut them down to size. I recommended that we visit the Tom Clark and let him work his magic on them with his machine tools. After all, he was a career machinist in addition to running Tectron, his telescope and parts company. We took the aluminum parts over to Tom's for some serious material removal one cloudy afternoon, and his fly cutter got a workout shaving the parts down to the proper thickness quite quickly. It was an impressive display of the fastest way to take material off of a large piece of metal. It was fun to watch. This required safety glasses, of course, and hands placed to keep hot shavings from going down your shirt! After we cleaned up, I helped Gary epoxy some of the parts of his first dome together. It was cool enough that we had to use electric blankets and heaters to keep the metal up to temperature through the night so that the epoxy could set. With no improvement in the weather in sight for golf or astronomy, I decided to thank Gary and Vandy for their wonderful hospitality and head for home a day or two early. I drove the very windy road through the Gila Wilderness between Silver City and Truth or Consequences, and sadly it was cloudy at higher altitude and I didn't get to enjoy many of the views. So, I had fun driving around the bends of the mountain road, and eventually made it back to I-25. I stopped in Albuquerque at Total Wine to look for interesting beers, and found quite a few, including the aforementioned imperial java stout from Santa Fe Brewing. I made a stop in Los Alamos to drop off some things for a good friend and pick up a rare beer at the Los Alamos grocery store, and then headed east to eastern New Mexico for the night. It was a relaxing drive from Santa Fe down to I-40. The next day I drove to central Missouri, and then home the next day. Fall had arrived, and the weather was pretty uninspiring as I picked up groceries and settled into my routine of optical work that would last until my trip to Florida, where I sit as I finish writing these words. It was a productive fall and winter, and now I look forward to my next adventure in April. It will be a big one, and hopefully it won't take forever for me to write that one up. Stay tuned for my Winter Star Party article and more...... I hope the rain is over for a few years in New Mexico, at least when I am there. I wish you at least two out of three of clear skies, good beer, and good friends. One out of three is not enough. -Mike Lockwood, Lockwood Custom Optics |