Lockwood
Custom Optics at the
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A habit of convenience I've been getting into a very bad habit. I attend a star party, and then come home, unpack, catch up, get very busy with optical and other projects, and I don't write the article in a timely manner. Memories fade, and documenting the events becomes far more difficult. Motivation fades. I used to take notes during star parties of observations, gatherings, etc., but I've discovered that I am almost never bored at these events now, so I forget. I have attended two star parties regularly, so I have come to know the organizers and attendees, and there is always something to do, such as a conversation, a workout, a meal, a beer tasting, observing, or sleeping. This has cut down on my note-taking time, but my small voice recorder helps with that.... when I remember to utilize it. I originally bought it for recording family, friends, and observing notes, particulary on my 2019 trip to Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii, where I visited a good friend and recorded a nearly four-hour conversation. Certain conversations and events can never be recreated, my memory is not always great, and I want to preserve them. However, I didn't use it for Okie-Tex, and I've always got something to do, so I'm doing the best that I can to write this in May/June of 2023! My WSP 2023 article is also not done, but I did manage to make some notes on the recorder during that event. For me, this was to be a straight out and back trip just for Okie-Tex, because various friends were busy and this meant I would not be making other stops. One friend's local beer had to stay in my cooler for a bit longer. Normally I would deliver it to Los Alamos, but not this trip. This means that this article will be shorter than most, but I still have some good things and photos to share. On to Oklahoma After my one-and-a-half day drive through western Illinois, central Missouri, and across southern Kansas, I crossed the border into Oklahoma in the morning of Friday, Sept. 23, and arrived at Camp Billy Jo a bit after lunch. I dropped off some things at the house I was staying at, and then headed over to the observing field to find our group. I had brought my TMB 92mm f/5.5 to experiment with some wide-field nightvision observing if I was not observing with something else. It would be set up on my alt-az tripod that came with my 100mm Oberwork binoculars. I also had my nightvision monocular and a selection of eyepieces that work well with it. Sadly, Ed and his 24" f/2.75 mistress, Elvira, could not attend and would miss all of the fun. We were set up with John and Cindy from Alabama, who have attended multiple times now, and bring a motor home, a 22" f/3.3 JPAstrocraft telescope, and three dogs. Our group would be joined by Walt, owner of a new 30" f/3.0 Starstructure, his friend Don, Rex, a long-time Okie-Tex attendee and beer connisseur extraordinaire, as well as some new friends, including Kara who drove down from Idaho. Our first tasting on Friday was a small affair, but high-quality as usual. After we prepared and enjoyed our dinner, it was time to enjoy the beautiful clear skies that Okie-Tex usually offers. This year I don't really have observing notes, so I'll have to skip that part of this article. The skies were quite good, and temperatures were comfortable after a warm day. This was repeated until roughly Tuesday, when some clouds materialized and some shenanigans ensued, more on that later. Here's a quick shot of what one might see at Okie-Tex, the rising winter sky in the east over a camper an a cedar tree.  Also set up in our area was a group of young astrnomers, and that included Zane. His enthusiasm and distinctive voice carried across to our observing location, and it was very entertaining to hear his reaction to the views that they were seeing. Comments were unfiltered and were those of an incredibly enthusiastic astronomer having a great time under dark skies with friends, surrounded by hundreds doing similar. He also sounded roughly like he had about half a dozen espressos and several sugary beverages just before dark. I would love to have that energy all night. Saturday's tasting featured ten attendees (counted in the photos that I took), including Pearre, an Amarillo club member who had not attended for some time and whom we missed greatly. He stopped in for a day or two, and brought outstanding beverages to share with the group. It was wonderful to see him and talk beer and astronomy as we sipped some delicious selections on a warm September afternoon. We took turns shooing away various insects that were curious about what we were up to.  Up through Saturday night, I did not shoot many of my own images because I was observing and enjoying nightvision views. Sunday's tasting was even larger, with a surprise returning attendee, Jim, who was one of the original tasters that I first joined many years ago, when having a beer tasting at a star party was a novel idea for me. They had been doing it for a long time, including back when it was frowned upon. Times have changed. Twelve of us sipped some superb offerings while socializing before another night of observing.  In the past, I would be bored at star parties, but that has changed. My position in the industry means that a lot of people will say hello as I walk by, and conversations start. I expect it to take time to walk around the field, and the time depends on who I run into and what questions they have. I try to take the time to talk to everyone when possible, and I enjoy it. Also, I have met a lot of the attendees at Okie-Tex and WSP, and most of the staff, so it seems like there is always someone to talk to or some gathering to join. It's also great to meet the locals in Kenton, and that makes the whole experience even more enjoyable and fulfilling. One local joined us for some observing and a few beer tastings, and had a great time. Sunday night I made time (again, I'm usually not bored) and set up to shoot a bunch of images of Sagittarius, with the goal of stacking a higher quality image and maybe making a print for my wall. I'm working out the best process for this, but after a bit of experimenting I'm including my latest result of the process of stacking about twenty images shot with my Canon Ra and a 50mm prime lens. I am pleased that some of the h-alpha nebulae, including the Cat's Paw and others, show up in the processed image. The shadow at lower right is of the mesa to the west of the star party field, and resizing is not kind to the star images, but you get the idea.  On Monday I took some photos of Walt with his 30" f/3.0, and here he is with it. It's a beautiful instrument. Unfortunately a couple of nights later the Nexus computer went out and could not be revived. A late night video call to Serge and disconnection of the internal battery failed to bring the patient back to life, so Walt had to go manual mode with no tracking for the rest of the star party. I'm used to failures of the Argo Navis due to humidity, but this the first time I've seen a Nexus fail like that. Serge was puzzled.  Charlie
Warren finally decided to make his appearance on Monday, and I said
hello and informed him of the tasting schedule and location. He's
busier than ever, but made time to make the trek to Okie-Tex to enjoy
some dark, clear skies. He's the publisher of Amateur Astronomy
Magazine, and an avid photographer and astro-imager. He, too,
stayed busy, and I saw him at a few other gatherings during the star
party.Skies at Okie-Tex were quite good, reading about a 21.6 on the Sky Quality Meter at best, which is very good. I've noticed brighter skies in the recent past at WSP, Okie-Tex, and at home, and other amateurs around the world have mentioned similar findings and measurements. It appears that this is not light pollution, but it's the brightness of the sky itself, and it is related to the solar cycle. Apparently solar activity increases sky brightness at night. I look forward to darker skies in the future as the solar cycle declines. On Tuesday, I gave my two talks, the first an updated version of my talk about diagnosing various telescope problems using the image of a star (see my article version - Why aren't my stars round?), and the second a new talk titled "What the heck is an interferometer?", in which I explained the principles of the interference of light and the basic test setups that opticians use for interferometry. Overall, they both went quite well, and I think that most people grasped some of the principles involved in testing. Following another highly successful afternoon beer tasting/gathering post-talks, we got a break from non-stop observing because some clouds came in and gave us an excuse to do something different. While some may shudder or be annoyed at how I said that, observing fatigue is a very real thing for many of us, and after a lot of clear nights we want a break to sit down, chat, and possibly go to bed early. Clouds - an excuse for a party (as long as they don't stick around) This led to some people, many of whom will be named, deciding to take a break for a night, and this meant they wanted to celebrate a bit. A dinner party was quickly assembled after the very relaxed beer tasting concluded, and contributions, in the form of food and beverages, came from everywhere. Pulled pork, beans, rice, salad, and chips and hummus appeared from various motor homes and camper trailers, and we all assembled in a circle in front of a couple of motor homes with extremely hospitable hosts. I finally had a good excuse to sample a white Russian made by Dean, and it was excellent. Some distilled spirits also appeared on the table, and at least one bottle had to be returned to its owner (by me) the next morning. That's one hallmark of a great gathering.  We ate, we drank, and very soon the conversations were flowing. Out of some camper came the designated multi-colored disco ball of adult storytime, which was placed on the ground in the middle of the approximately circle-shaped ring of people in chairs that had formed. Of course after a bit of time (say ten minutes) spent sipping beverages, spontaneously, those with entertaining stories started telling some excellent tales. LeRoss lives in Kenton and has many stories from the local area and his life, and Tom Wideman has a ton of airline stories.  Some of you know that Charlie Warren has probably had more jobs over his life than ten people combined. He seems to have done just about everything, including some questionable jobs offered to him by interesting people that he turned down. He should apply for a job with Dos Equis, or possibly the CIA. (Seriously, I'm guessing he has a story about the CIA, but I'm not sure if I should ask!) The stories went on into the night, and I am told the voices from the group were heard all the way up at the camp buildings. I believe at some point it cleared off, but it was a night off, and I don't have any images to back up that claim. There were other small gatherings going on in RVs all over the field, and fun was had by those that wanted to have fun. Wednesday was another excellent day. It was nice to sleep in and get up around 10am. On a few mornings during the event, I went for a bit of run from the house, through the Kenton cemetary, and over to the star party. Then I'd have a light breakfast with friends, and we'd plan what to do for lunch and dinner. I would walk back to Kenton, shower, and drive back over to help prepare lunch. This was a great way to get going in the morning. On Wednesday, though, we had a bit lighter lunch because it was the day of the famous sushi party thrown by Tom and Kathy Wideman and Vance Bagwell, and we needed some extra stomach capacity. The Widemans go fishing in Alaska every year, and bring home some great wild protein that gets frozen for transport and storage and then later used in the sushi. They make it fresh that day, and a couple of hours after lunch we gather at their trailer and wait for the first tray of wonderful food to emerge, accompanied by the same song every year (it's distinctive but I can't remember what the name of it is). Tom always makes a show of it, and all the cameras are out.  Attendees that like sake bring bottles of their own choosing to add to the party. I'm more of a beer fan, so I mostly wait until the beer tasting that then follows the sushi party, but I will sip a few of them out of curiosity. Here are the two chefs, Vance on the left, Tom on the right. Thanks for a great reason to go light on lunch! Note the assortment of sake on the table, I know nothing about different brands, I stick to beer snobbery because I'm good at it.  Here's the whole group enjoying the festivities and trying to stay in the shade, which is practically a sport with all of the clear skies.  After a bit of a break, we convened our tasting, but as it concluded we had to move into John and Cindy's RV when a steady rain shower popped up and helped knock down the dust on the field. As I recall, it rained for more than half and hour, and the dry field instantly absorbed it. My photos show that there were ten of us, plus three dogs, sheltering in the RV with the AC running to keep it hospitable. It was crowded, but fun. The dogs loved the attention.  The shower rained itself out, and we observed that evening, but as I mentioned above, Walt's Nexus was not working so we attempted to debug late in the evening to no avail. I had been doing quite a bit of observing with the 30", so I was disappointed but happy that we got to enjoy the telescope through the earlier part of the star party. We had John's 22" f/3.3 to fall back on, and I think by this time we were just trying to come up with objects to look at. That's the sign of a good star party. On Thursday I walked around taking photos of the camp and the observing fields because I was going to leave the next morning. Here are a few selected images. The first image shows the observing field with a large RV parked at the end of one row. Word on the field was it had garnered a few nicknames due to its propensity to block the sky, I can't recall exactly what they were, but something like "The Warren Mesa" was approximately right.  Next, here's a shot of the excellent room in the new building that is used for presentations. It can be made as darks as needed to see projected images, or it can be used for other purposes. It's a beautiful facility, the best I've seen at a star party anywhere. (However, I have to say the most memorable place I have given a talk is in Allan Wade's garage, with a black widow spider hanging out on the wall taking in my talk as well. It was later dispatched with prejudice.)  For dinner we had grilled veggies and steaks done by Don on his camper's grill. They were all delicious. It was a great way to end a nice week of cooking and enjoying great food in the middle of nowhere. The evening brought some high clouds and some wind gusts, so many of us called it quits early. Here's a shot that I liked with the clouds blurring the stars ever so slightly, showing their colors, a pleasant effect for photos, but not observing.  I said my goodbyes as I headed for my car, got a good night's sleep, and drove to western Missouri on Friday. I completed the drive home with a much shorter drive on Saturday. It was another great Okie-Tex, and I am already looking forward to 2023's event. No scorpions got me on the drive home, so that's a plus. -Mike Lockwood, Lockwood Custom Optics |