(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 3 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
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 planisphere – 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.
