(This article originally appeared in the second quarter 2003 STAR Newsletter. -I)
My First Winter Star Party
by Bill Webster
How would I describe my first Winter Star Party? A great vacation with a telescope would be one way. A week in the sun near Key West, Florida in February is another. A large gathering of amateur astronomers in the in the sun near Key West, Florida is better. The temperature was in the mid 80’s all week and the sun was out. If nothing else, a week of that in West Summerland Key, Florida beats a week of work in cold and dreary Raleigh, NC.
This being my first WSP, I didn’t have an agenda other then to have a great time, view some of the southern DSOs that I can’t see from Raleigh and hopefully meet all the big names in amateur astronomy. I may not have met them all but I sure met some of them. Roland Christen of Astro-Physics, Markus Ludes of APM Telescopes, Rick Singmaster of Starmaster Telescopes, and Al Nagler of TeleVue. I also heard that Dave Kriege of Obession Telescopes was there, but I never saw him. I did meet Sue French who is a contributing editor to Sky & Telescope. Also, I met Tony Hallas – one of the finest astro imagers in the world, and of course Mr. Winter Star Party – Tippy D’Auria.
The Winter Star Party was everything I expected it would be except for the viewing. I was warned that the skies were not all that dark but I did expect a little better. Depending on which direction you looked, the visual magnitude ranged anywhere from 5.0 to 6.5. But aside from that, the actual party part was great. There is nothing like viewing in February wearing blue jeans and sweatshirt. If you wanted to you could get away with wearing shorts but I didn’t. The dew was heavy, but seeing the southern objects down to the horizon made it worthwhile.
WSP’03 held many talks and workshops everyday. This year’s talks seemed to be mostly on imaging. There were workshops just about everyday on how to process your image from the previous night. Others were on how to convert your film to CCD. A talk by Yuri Petrunin was given on how to design your own Maksutov telescope. Dr. Caroline Simpson spoke on “A day in the life of a Radio Astronomer (What Jodie Foster never told you)”. There also were activities everyday for children. As always there was a swap meet on Friday morning where you could buy or sell junk (I mean unneeded astro gear). Gary H., did you buy that memory stick?
The Club was well represented at WSP’03. RAC members Scott Carpenter & son, Gary Held, Paul Rust, Al Hamrick, Bob Wolk, Pierre Faucher, Joe Mack, John Nigro, Mike Batalia, Jerry Watson, Jerry Zerbock, Jim Pressley Mike Brooks with some of his family, Mark & Kim Summerville, Bob Schriber and I were all there. The RAC sign also made it to WSP’03 thanks to Bob Schriber. The sign did cause a minor problem when it was placed at the main entrance causing some to think that RAC was welcoming you to the star party. It was quickly moved to a less conspicuous place.
As always for me, one of the attractions of star parties is viewing through someone else’s telescope. The views of the moon and Saturn thru John Nigro’s 12” f/8 were awesome. I got the finest view I ever had of the sun thru a 7” AstroPhysics using a H-Alpha filter and a TeleVue binoviewer. I could see amazing detail on the surface along with the solar prominences. One of the strangest scopes I saw was an 8” truss tube refractor. It sort of looked like an 8” truss tube Dob, only the eyepiece was at the bottom. Some of my observing notes contain many of my favorite deep space objects and many new objects. In no certain order they are Abell 12, NGC2359 Thor’s Helmet, NGC2392 Eskimo Nebula, NGC2372 pn/Gemini, NGC4361 pn/Corvus, NGC2452 pn/Puppis, NGC2818 pn/Pxyis, NGC4038 Ringtail Galaxy, M104, NGC3384 galaxy/Leo, NGC3398 galaxy/Usra Major, NGC3115 Spindle Galaxy/Sexten, M96, M65, M66, NGC3628 galaxy/Leo, M53, M3, M68, NGC5139 Omega Centauri, Abell 7 (not visible), NGC1832 galaxy/Lepus, Comet C/2001 RX14 Linear in Usra Major, NGC2261 Hubble’s Variable, NGC1851 gc/Columba, Horsehead, NGC4945 galaxy/Centaurus, NGC5102 oc/Camelopardalis, NGC3918 pn/Centaurus, NGC4755 Jewel Box/Crux, NGC5286 gc/Centaurus, M83, NGC3382 Keyhole Nebula/Carina. I also had a great naked eye view of Venus. As it rose in the southern sky, it made a very bright blue white light across the water from the horizon to the shore. That was a real treat. I somehow missed looking for the Eight-Burst Nebula in Vela. Oh well, maybe next year.
The only real down side of WSP’03 was Jim Pressely getting sick. He turned a nice shade of green after he arrived. It was touch and go for the first day and a half but Jim pulled through like a real trooper.
A film crew from CBS’ The Osgood Files showed up. They wanted to do a positive piece on space to help counter act the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. The first night they were there was cloudy so they came back. Several of our club members were caught on film. The piece aired March 2.
