On Sept. 24th, 2011, my eldest son and I joined up with other amateur astronomers from the Raleigh Astronomy Club (RAC) and the Chapel Hill Astronomical Observing Society (CHAOS) at Staunton River State Park in Virginia (http://dcr.state.va.us/state_parks/sta.shtml).
The purpose of our gathering was to determine the quality of park and its amenities for future astronomy gatherings. Due to all the forecasts calling for clouds and rain for Friday night, my son and I decided to head up Saturday morning. However, it turns out Friday night was a night for observing despite all the forecasts.
Despite being rather wet, the field held up very well to traffic as well as my 3,000 lb camper. I’ve loaded a video I took from about the center the field to give you an idea of the local horizon as well as how big this place is. Here is a link to the video:http://youtu.be/nPBl8yWoYW0. Additionally, a large view of the stitched panorama image at the top can be found here.
Saturday afternoon we were treated to a surprise lecture from RAC member Mike Malaska in the meeting room of the Visitor Center. This also gave us a chance to look over the meeting facilities.
After the lecture the RAC folks treated the CHAOS folks to a dinner of hot dogs, hamburgers and chips. Â Manning the grills where Debbie and Doug Lively as well as yours truly.
As for sky conditions, most of Saturday night was rather clouded over. However we did get a few sucker holes. At one point, I could make out all 4 stars in the bowl of Ursa Minor. Another sucker hole was open for a while in the South East. I was able to confirm that we were looking at Fomalhuat and surrounding stars in Piscis Austrinus. I think I may have also been looking at some stars in the constellation Grus. Regardless these were rather low on the horizon, around 15 degrees yet the view was pretty steady. At another point in the evening, a sucker hole in the East revealed Jupiter rising. The view of Jupiter was not very good as it was just too low on the horizon.
All in all, I was very impressed with the facilities and darkness of the sky. My only criticism (and it’s a small one) would be the bugs; the mosquitoes were pretty bad. However that can be easily overcome. I really look forward to more events at Staunton River State Park!
