Central Texas Star Party, May 22-23, 2009

Despite a heavy university workload, I am going to aim to head out to this year's Central Texas Star Party, put on by the Austin Astronomical Society. I am going to aim to be there both nights, weather permitting, and will take my new tent and camping gear. At this point I'm also aiming to take just my LX200 and get stuck into some imaging, although if there is room in my car, my Lightbridge 12" will come along as well. My target is going to be attempting to image M51. What I hope to gain is a better understanding of precise polar alignment. While I am pretty close, and have gained a good understanding of autoguiding, I still think that I can do better. Hopefully someone there will be able to show me how to get a precise polar alignment with the wedge. Anyway, it should be great fun!

Austin Astro Society Public Star Party, 2/28/09

Last night I took my daughter to the Austin Astronomical Society's monthly public outreach star party. Their observatory, located in central Texas, is positioned right next to a holiday camp. As such, when public nights are advertised there, the folks who are staying at the holiday park make their way over to look through the club's observatory scopes and the scopes belonging to the club's members. As it turns out, a lot of folks who book holidays at the park make sure they book around the public access nights.

So, my daughter and I drove down there early, enjoyed a Texas country dinner and then arrived at the observatory grounds an hour before sunset to set up. We took the 12" Lightbridge to maximize people's views of deep sky objects. At first this was a bit of a concern due to some very high gusting winds in the area (15-20 MPH!) but at sunset, these settled down. I also used my car as a wind break which worked just fine.

I estimate there were about fifteen astronomers there who had set up various scopes, including small goto scopes, through to big Dobs and some nice equatorially mounted refractors. So, the visiting public definitely had the chance to look through a nice range of scopes.

















Even though a cresent moon remained in the sky through most of the evening, picking out and showing people various objects was really easy with the Lightbridge. Favorites included:

• M42 Orion Nebula
• M35 in Auriga
• Double Cluster in Perseus
• Venus (vey nice thin cresent phase)
• M81 and M82 galaxies
• Comet Lulin (still relativley bright with a barely noticeable tail)
• Saturn
• M46 (star cluster) and NGC2436 (planetary nebula)

The visitors were generally "wowed" by a lot of these objects. After having read some articles on star parties, I decided to keep the information I gave to the visitors really high level. I tried to avoid fancy terminology, references to measurements of distance and catalogue numbers and just tried to keep it simple. I also had my laptop handy with Stellarium running to help folks pick out constellations. They also had some interesting questions ranging from the cause and effect of sunspots through to choosing a good beginner telescope. I estimated maybe 60-80 visitors for the night.

My daughter enjoyed the event too. There was a scout troop present who were working on there astronomy merit badge and she enjoyed their company (!). But after a while it got too cold for her and she ended up getting cosi in the back of my car.

A fun event, anyway. I enjoy public outreach and using the Lightbridge is a really good way to let folks get up close and personal with many DSOs. Even with the moon present, the Lightbridge easily teased out details on various galaxies and nebulas. I love that scope!!!!

I also got to meet some club members I haven't met before as we traded notes on the visitors, our gear and the sky/weather conditions. All really nice people, and some of them even brought a big pot of hot soup to share. Excellent!

All in all a good night out. We left pretty early as the temperature dropped dramatically and the winds picked up again.

As the crowd thinned out I attempted a star trails photo. Due to the darkness of the site I was able to leave my shutter open for longer periods. I ended up taking an hour's worth of 5 minute exposures. I also made the shots slightly out of focus so that the star trails themselves were a bit thicker. The result is below.

Central Texas Star Party

Last night I went to the Central Texas Star Party. It's an event held at the Canyon of the Eagles observatory site out in the countryside, put on by the Austin Astronomical Society. It was my first major astro event and I thought it was really good fun.

I got there very early, about 2PM, to get a good spot (which includes a table with power point so I could run my scope and laptop). Most folks had already arrived and set up their gear (like the gear you see in the picture above) but had left it to attend some Society meetings. I estimate about 100 folks attended (includes wives!!!). Types of scopes ranged from small, store-bought reflectors and refractors through to massive truss dobsonian designs and everything in between.

A good mate of mine turned up 30 minutes after I arrived with a much needed sun shade (it was 98 yesterday afternoon!). We set up the sun shade, then relaxed for a few hours shooting the breeze and trying to stay cool. Later joined by Jeff from the more informal Dam Astronomers group, more good conversation over dinner.

When it got dark we had okay conditions to begin with. High level clouds plagued our observing for a good few hours, but by midnight the conditions had settled down nicely and I was able to target some deep sky objects to a good level of satisfaction. The Perseids meteor shower also put on a great show throughout the night, much to the delight of the group that had assembled under those dark skies.

Highlights of the evening include:
a. Observing lots of deep sky stuff (especially around Sagitarrius). Good night for galaxies. I also observed M24 ("Star Cloud") for the first time and was really impressed with it.
b. Putting the Panoptic 22mm through its paces. It performed really well on all object.
c. Hubble Space Telescope flyover
d. Iridium Flare: During the 60s, a bunch of satellites were put into orbit with iridium (material) used in the antennas. When these satellites pass overhead at the right angle, their antennas emit a really bright reflection visible from Earth. We saw one last night and I was stunned at how bright it was - just amazing.
e. Perseids meteor shower: All night long, small fireballs shot across the sky. Some even exploded in some rather brilliant flashes.
f. The funny bunch of astronomers who would "ooh" and "ahh" loudly together when a meteor shot across the sky. When one meteor raced 80% across the sky above us, leaving a beautiful trail behind it, the crowd actually applauded! LOL
g. By midnight the Milky Way was high above our heads, stretching from north to south. Just amazing...

I also put the Televue 10mm Radian to the test. I liked it. I used it with some globular clusters and while the image was a bit on the dark side, it provided excellent contrast and detail. I would have liked to have tested it on Jupiter more thoroughly but conditions left Jupiter in a less-than-desirable state last night.

I spent the entire night at the site. I observed until around 3:30am, then slept in the back of the car (made a bed in the back!) and awoke at 7am. Packed up the gear and was back home by 9am, albeit totally wiped out!

All-in-all, a great night out and something I wouldn't hesitate recommending to other fellow astronomers who might be tossing and turning over whether or not to go to such an event.