Sunday, July 29, 2012
The Herschel Project Night 35
I just spent nearly a week at the legendary Chiefland Astronomy Village in Florida, so how come the title up there is just “Night 35”? What happened to all the other nights? The weatherman is what happened to them, muchachos. I was lucky to get in one really good evening; July observing in Florida is always a crap shoot. But, in typical fashion for your scatterbrained correspondent, that is getting ahead of our story. Why don’t we back up to the beginning? As you will hear next Sunday (see the Postscript below), I took the whole week of my birthday off, celebrating with wild abandon (for me) on Tuesday night, July 17. Nevertheless, I still managed to roll out at oh-dark-thirty the next morning to get it together for the six hour trip south to the CAV. Wednesday morning was actually fairly relaxed. Yes, my head was still aching a little from maybe one too many margaritas, but I'd had the sense to load up Lucille Van Pelt, my Toyota 4Runner, Tuesday afternoon. All I had to do was slurp down a big cup of java and get on the road by 8:30—which would ensure I hit Chiefland at motel check-in time.
The trip down I-10 was uneventful—but boring. For the first time in a couple of years I was by myself, Miss Dorothy and I having made the decision this would be a good time for her to visit her daughter in Washington DC. So, I had nobody to talk to all the way down, spending my time playing the “What did I forget?” game and listening to Sirius XM Radio.
The music was good, and my ruminations on what I might have left behind indicated I hadn’t forgot any important astro-gear this time. I had not just relied on my gear checklist or my memory. I went over everything two or three times, checking all the stuff off the list, but also making sure I wasn’t overlooking things not specifically enumerated on that checklist—like the tripod spreader that stayed home for one recent CAV expedition.
Alas, I was only about twenty-five miles down 19 when I began to smell the scent of skunk. Virtual skunk, that is, as in getting SKUNKED by the weather. The sky overhead was still blue, but ahead of me to the south was a mass of clouds that kept climbing. By the time I was within fifty miles of the Chiefland Day’s Inn, the blue was gone and it had begun to rain. Hard. I was disappointed but not surprised. The last couple of times I haven’t even been able to set up the gear on the field on Wednesday, much less observe. Is Wednesday’s weather in Chiefland cursed these days? Sure seems to be.
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| What the--?! |
When I tell folks I observe from the Chiefland Astronomy Village, they imagine me holed up in an RV or a trailer or even a tent. Uh-uh, nosir buddy. I’ve sometimes thought about trailers and RVs, but I really don’t want to drive or tow one. Tents? After doing a tent one Chiefland Spring Picnic in some of the hottest and most humid conditions Florida can produce, I have never tent-camped at a star party again. Any star party.
After I was unpacked and settled in my room, I turned on The Weather Channel to see what it might be able to tell me about Wednesday night. The answer was “not much.” Ambiguous, anyway. “Partly cloudy. Chance of scattered thunderstorms. Rain chance 40%.” OK, well, how about if I had a look for myself? Outside my second floor room I saw dark clouds approaching from the west, and in about five minutes it was raining again. It wasn’t raining hard, though, so I figgered Wednesday night was still an open question.
There were a couple of unpleasant surprises at the Wal-Mart, alas. I always take Jack Links Flaming Buffalo Chicken Nuggets to the CAV for late night snacking. None could I find. I had to settle for their Teriyaki Jerky. More seriously, the McDonald’s stand inside the store where I get my traditional CAV First Night Big Mac was finis. Out of business. Sigh. I didn’t feel like a major meal, so after Wal-Mart I made tracks for the Taco Bell next to the Day’s Inn. Those new Dorito Tacos are just KILLER. I wound up not missing my Mickey D’s pig-out at all.
What to do? The sky didn’t look at all promising now, with Vega fading and disappearing, but with scope nearly ready, I decided to cool my heels for another hour or so and see what happened. It was only 9:30 p.m. EDT, felt an hour earlier to CDT Unk, and I hated to give up unless it started raining. There was no obviously threatening weather nearby; it was just cloudy. And I wasn’t feeling the least bit nervous despite being alone on the field.
I never seem to get spooked at Chiefland like I can at my home observing site. A couple of times Wednesday evening I vaguely wondered if Florida’s scary Skunk Ape might be watching me from a distant tree-line, but not seriously. Also, while there was no one on the Billy Dodd Field with me, the neighboring New Field, home of the Nova Sedus Star Party, had some people on it, so I was not really alone.
After breakfast I spent a couple of hours hanging out in the room reading, relaxing, and looking at Cloudy Nights and the Astromart before returning to the CAV at 11 a.m. to see what was up. What was up was plenty of blue sky and Sun. Enough Sun to make my stay fairly short. I was still alone on the field, but I suspected that would change by late afternoon. I’d do lunch and head back when the temperatures began to cool at six or seven in the p.m.
Faint glimpse of The Trifid recorded, the sky closed down suddenly and completely. Me and my buddies hung-in until midnight, when it became obvious nothing was changing anytime soon. I was ready to cover the scope by then, anyhow. The dew was insanely heavy. I mean, Bertha’s tube was raining. Her corrector was kept dry by her DewBuster heater, and I was kept dry by the tent canopy, but heading to the clubhouse for a Monster or to use the facilities resulted in wet pants legs from sodden grass, which had recently been cut but was growing like crazy in the warm, wet conditions. By midnight it was miserably damp feeling even under my canopy.
I gladly pulled the Big Switch and headed back to Chiefland proper. At the motel it sure was a traditional Chiefland sign-off: that sainted bottle of Yell and an hour or two of Unk’s fave trash-TV, Ghost Adventures: “Welcome to your final destination, HELL!” I was in a fairly good mood. It had been fun hanging out with my mates, the scope had worked fine, so had the camera, and at least I’d seen a few things. Not that I wasn’t getting a little nervous. Only two nights left and not a single H-object in the can.
How did I fill Friday? More motel breakfast, more relaxing in the room, more surfing the amateur astronomy side of the Internet, a little writing, and—I couldn’t resist—one more visit to Taco Bell. I knew the fast-food-fare wasn't doing me much good, but that Dorito Taco Big Box, which includes a Taco Supreme loaded with sour cream and a humongous burrito, was just too much for me to easily resist. Sigh. Unk's taste doesn't exactly run to the healthy, but at least it runs to the inexpensive.
Back at the motel I had a (very) quick look at Cloudy Nights and it was time for bed. Frankly, I was still on a high from a great night of observing, and didn’t feel that tired, but the clock insisted it was after four, and I figgered I had better turn in. I planned on going at least till midnight Saturday, which, it appeared, would be even better than Friday had been.
When I awakened just before 11 a.m. Saturday morning, it hit me like a ton of bricks: “The Herschel 2500 is finished!” The next thing to hit me was a sinking feeling to the tune of “What do I look at now?” The answer is something I am calling “The Herschel Project Phase II.” What that will involve is me taking DSLR shots of some of the best of the best, and doing a lot of sketches. I plan on sticking mostly to the Herschel 400 for Phase II, but we will see where my observing leads me. If The Project is ever to evolve into a book I will need plenty of (still) astrophotos and sketches. I will probably also go back and re-video quite a few objects with the Xtreme, especially the Virgo-Coma crew, most of which were done with my old black and white Stellacam II.
One thing is sure: at the height of a hot southern summer the idea of simple visual observing and sketching with my Dobsonian, Old Betsy, under cool fall skies is mighty appealing. I'll never forget one of the earliest Herschel Project runs on a chilly night at the Deep South Regional Star Gaze nearly three years ago. In the coldest and darkest reaches of the night I could have sworn William and Caroline were standing at my side.
Saturday was supposed to be the best day weather-wise of my time Down Chiefland Way, and that’s how it started. It was hot, but not crazy hot, and there were very few clouds. Not at first. I kept a wary eye on the sky all morning, and was pleased at the way it was shaping up. After lunch, which consisted of a comparatively healthy po-boy from the Wally-World deli, I could see some weather moving in, but I reassured myself with “Just a few clouds off the Gulf; they will be gone at sunset.”
Then came the saddest thing, the “All Good Things” thing. Time to pack the vehicle and get on the road for home. This had not been a perfect outing, one night and a little more of observing out of four. But I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do, putting the principal observing for The Herschel Project to bed. And I know you can only expect so much from a Florida summer sky. I knew that very well, muchachos, but I still wanted more. My thirst for the deep sky didn’t come close to being slaked this time. Translation? “Just want to come back soon.”
Postscript:
Despite the weather, this was one classic Uncle Rod Chiefland expedition. If not the best, it's in the top two or three at least. Alas, by 2012 change was coming that would make the place different from what it had been over the previous decade.
I continued my Chiefland Observing Expeditions for the next three years after this entry, but only spoke to the new owner of the Clark property once (briefly) and he definitely did NOT seem overly pleased to make my acquaintance. Just didn't seem very friendly--not to me, anyhow. The feeling sure was different compared to the days when the ever-ebullient Tom Clark could be found strolling the field or chasing around on his golf cart at any hour.
The big news in this article, was that this was it. I'd been all the way through the Herschel Project. I'd seen and usually imaged all 2500 of its deep sky objects. What I didn't realize at the time was that the H-Project would turn out to be the observing project of a lifetime.
Probably, anyhow. Who's to say I won't come up with some crazy program sometime soon that puts the Herschel Project to shame? But in the five years since I finished the Project, I haven't. Maybe the stars just haven't aligned the way they did that spring when I read Julie and Julia and The Scientific Papers of Sir William Herschel in quick succession and became inspired. Lately, I've contented myself with bright and pretty deep sky objects, and that seems to be OK for now.
What else? Some random observations...
It's foolish to try to make conclusions about the weather from the perspective of five or ten years. BUT...it certainly seems to me that the Chiefland weather patterns have changed. There used to be clear summer nights aplenty. Since 2012? Not so much.
Reading this article has given me a yen to get my old Mallincam Xtreme out again. Yes, it's an analog camera, but these modern digital video cams have a lot of trouble doing what it could do easily. As in showing scads of PGC galaxies in 20 - 30-second exposures.
The Taco Bell Dorito Tacos are back. Dare I?
I miss my long gone NexStar 11. Mostly. There's one thing I do not miss about her: the cord-wrap problems inherent in an alt-azimuth mount. Today, with polar alignment so easy and precise thanks to Sharpcap and Polemaster, there's no reason not to use a GEM for video astronomy. Oh, and I don't miss her weight either, which was the reason I sold her.
Can you believe Ghost Adventures is still on the air?
I used to have a tendency to get nervous on a dark observing field by myself. No more. That's one of the more positive changes I've experienced over the last three years.
If there were still a Holiday Inn Express in Chiefland I might be tempted into a July expedition down Chiefland way even now.
Switching to a digital video recorder from a DVD recorder was one of the things that really sped up the H-Project as I passed the halfway point.
I still haven't eaten better barbecue than what I had at Bill's during the heyday of the Herschel Project. Oh, and their old fashioned salad bar was also crazy good.
Sometimes it's hard to believe I regularly observed 100 or more objects a night during the Project. Today, most of my imaging is with a DSLR where I essay one or two DSOs an evening.
Yes, the Days Inn was déclassé, but having a cool and dry room, cable TV, a decent breakfast, and a pool to cool down in on those hot summer afternoons is what more than anything else allowed me to easily observe past 3 am every night.
One reason CAV was such a treat in these years was that I was working my you-know-what off at my engineering job. Not only was I assigned to the LPD (landing ship) project in Pascagoula, I was regularly commuting to the Avondale Yards in New Orleans. A weekend of fun at CAV was just heaven.
Thence back to the room to sit and wait. I passed the time surfing the Cloudy Nights bulletin boards and reading my newest bit of Herschel-abilia, Michael Hoskin’s book, Discoverers of the Universe: William and Caroline Herschel. I’d actually started the Hoskin book during my last CAV foray, but had been too busy after that to finish it. I recommend it highly; “Discoverers” does one of the better jobs of portraying the enigmatic Caroline Herschel and explaining her motivations I have seen.
At about six o’clock I noticed sunlight shining in around the drapes and peeped outside. What I saw was plenty of blue sky and sunshine and almost no clouds. Turned the TWC back on to find they had reduced the chance of precipitation for the High Springs area (a.k.a. the Chiefland neighborhood) to 30%. Time to head to CAV!
Back on the good old Billy Dodd Memorial Observing Field after being gone some five months, I was both surprised and not surprised. As you know if you’ve read my report on my last Chiefland Odyssey, there was change afoot then: owners Tom and Jeannie Clark were pulling up stakes and moving to the New Mexico desert. What was surprising was that everything looked the same as ever. The old Clark homestead is still there. So is Tom’s shop and The Beast’s dome (the monstrous 42-inch went with Tom and Jeannie, natch). I just barely missed meeting the new owner of the Clark land, which includes the Dodd Field, "Jonesy," but I am at least told he is an enthusiastic amateur astronomer with some cool plans for the site.
Back on the good old Billy Dodd Memorial Observing Field after being gone some five months, I was both surprised and not surprised. As you know if you’ve read my report on my last Chiefland Odyssey, there was change afoot then: owners Tom and Jeannie Clark were pulling up stakes and moving to the New Mexico desert. What was surprising was that everything looked the same as ever. The old Clark homestead is still there. So is Tom’s shop and The Beast’s dome (the monstrous 42-inch went with Tom and Jeannie, natch). I just barely missed meeting the new owner of the Clark land, which includes the Dodd Field, "Jonesy," but I am at least told he is an enthusiastic amateur astronomer with some cool plans for the site.
One thing that did not surprise me was I was all alone. The weather reports simply didn’t warrant folks heading to the CAV. If I lived a lot closer and could make spur-of-the-moment decisions on whether to go or not go, I probably wouldn’t have been there either. But since I was there, I started setting up, taking it slowly in heat that was fierce enough, if not nearly as bad as it was at the above-mentioned May Spring Picnic. The heat indexes were high due to the humidity, but the actual temperature mostly stayed in the upper 80s - low 90s —good for the CAV in July.
What did I set up this time out? Big Bertha, My NexStar C11, who is always my CAV scope of choice. However, while she is a good telescope, she is over ten years old. I’ve never experienced any trouble with her beyond the occasional hiccup, but I wonder about her electronics sometimes. Since I am now driving a fairly sizable vehicle, I was able to bring a just-in-case backup scope, Celeste, my C8, and her CG5 mount.
There was also the Coleman tent canopy to keep sun and dew off. My new Toshiba 64 bit Win 7 laptop. The Mallincam Xtreme camera. Observing table. Chairs. Digital video recorder. Portable DVD player. Cables for everything. Wireless Wingman game pad to use as Bertha’s hand control with the aid of the NexRemote software. Set up took every bit of an hour. When I was finally done, I took a break and cooled off with bottled water under the storied Chiefland Picnic Pavilion and waited for darkness.
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| Unk's usual gear load-out. |
There was also the Coleman tent canopy to keep sun and dew off. My new Toshiba 64 bit Win 7 laptop. The Mallincam Xtreme camera. Observing table. Chairs. Digital video recorder. Portable DVD player. Cables for everything. Wireless Wingman game pad to use as Bertha’s hand control with the aid of the NexRemote software. Set up took every bit of an hour. When I was finally done, I took a break and cooled off with bottled water under the storied Chiefland Picnic Pavilion and waited for darkness.
Which arrived right on schedule. Unfortunately, it brought more clouds with it. I had some hopes, though. There were sucker holes, and the bright sapphire of Vega was in the clear. Time to get camera fired up and scope aligned, I reckoned. Which is where I ran into the first snag of the evening. I had not used the new laptop with Bertha or the Mallincam Xtreme yet, and though I had everything properly hooked up and turned on, the Toshiba resolutely refused to talk to either telescope or camera.
All it took to put that right was a little computer configurating, but before I did that I lit-off the Thermacell. Mosquitoes are not usually a problem at the Chiefland Astronomy Village, but the huge amount of rain that had been dumped on the area by a tropical system a couple of weeks previously ensured the little suckers were out in force. Thermacell cranking, I ceased being someone’s supper. The gadget didn’t do quite as well with the flocks of annoying no-see-um gnats, but the Thermacell combined with the fan I had stationed on the observing table kept the canopy reasonably bug free.
All set, I turned on the telescope and Xtreme camera, booted NexRemote, and began the go-to alignment. For once, Bertha didn’t do anything wacky. She often likes to torment your Uncle by imitating a maniac Ferris wheel during the “finding level” part of her alignment. Not tonight. She did her thing without complaint, choosing Vega as her first alignment star. Centered it up on the monitor with ease using the Xtreme’s wonderful crosshair video overlay. Pushed “Align” on the Wingman, and Bertha picked Arcturus as her number two star and headed that-a-way. Unfortunately, by the time she got there Arcturus wasn’t there. More and thicker clouds were moving in from the west.
All it took to put that right was a little computer configurating, but before I did that I lit-off the Thermacell. Mosquitoes are not usually a problem at the Chiefland Astronomy Village, but the huge amount of rain that had been dumped on the area by a tropical system a couple of weeks previously ensured the little suckers were out in force. Thermacell cranking, I ceased being someone’s supper. The gadget didn’t do quite as well with the flocks of annoying no-see-um gnats, but the Thermacell combined with the fan I had stationed on the observing table kept the canopy reasonably bug free.
All set, I turned on the telescope and Xtreme camera, booted NexRemote, and began the go-to alignment. For once, Bertha didn’t do anything wacky. She often likes to torment your Uncle by imitating a maniac Ferris wheel during the “finding level” part of her alignment. Not tonight. She did her thing without complaint, choosing Vega as her first alignment star. Centered it up on the monitor with ease using the Xtreme’s wonderful crosshair video overlay. Pushed “Align” on the Wingman, and Bertha picked Arcturus as her number two star and headed that-a-way. Unfortunately, by the time she got there Arcturus wasn’t there. More and thicker clouds were moving in from the west.
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| Darkness came, but with it clouds. |
I never seem to get spooked at Chiefland like I can at my home observing site. A couple of times Wednesday evening I vaguely wondered if Florida’s scary Skunk Ape might be watching me from a distant tree-line, but not seriously. Also, while there was no one on the Billy Dodd Field with me, the neighboring New Field, home of the Nova Sedus Star Party, had some people on it, so I was not really alone.
At 10:30 p.m. I reluctantly and disgustedly covered Bertha with her Desert Storm Cover. Conditions were not getting better; they were getting worse. The feel of “thunderstorm” or at least “rain” was in the air. I hopped in the truck, headed down the now admittedly eerie looking lane of mossy oaks, and back to the motel. Where I concluded a long day with a little Yell and a little cable TV. All I could find to watch at 11 p.m. was The Food Channel’s slightly annoying and ill-tempered Chopped. Hope springs eternal, and I didn’t let being well and truly skunked make me ill-tempered. I wasn’t happy about Wednesday night, but at least I had been able to get the new computer up and running without being rushed by a good sky.
When I got up and turned on the TV Thursday morning, I saw the weather predictions hadn’t changed, still indicating an iffy night, but I thought the sky looked more encouraging when I headed down to the motel breakfast at 8:30. While the Day’s Inn breakfast still ain’t as good as the Holiday Inn breakfast was, it has improved, going from overripe fruit and tiny bagels to sausage biscuits and make-your-own waffles. Unk was happy enough.
When I got up and turned on the TV Thursday morning, I saw the weather predictions hadn’t changed, still indicating an iffy night, but I thought the sky looked more encouraging when I headed down to the motel breakfast at 8:30. While the Day’s Inn breakfast still ain’t as good as the Holiday Inn breakfast was, it has improved, going from overripe fruit and tiny bagels to sausage biscuits and make-your-own waffles. Unk was happy enough.
After breakfast I spent a couple of hours hanging out in the room reading, relaxing, and looking at Cloudy Nights and the Astromart before returning to the CAV at 11 a.m. to see what was up. What was up was plenty of blue sky and Sun. Enough Sun to make my stay fairly short. I was still alone on the field, but I suspected that would change by late afternoon. I’d do lunch and head back when the temperatures began to cool at six or seven in the p.m.
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| The fabled Lunch Special. |
Lunch that day can be summed up with one word: “Bill’s.” As in Bar-B-Q Bill's, which is still Unk’s fave barbeque place in the whole wide world, coming in ahead of even the legendary Fresh-Air Barbeque in Jackson, Georgia (former site of the Peach State Star Gaze and current site of the Georgia Sky View). I ordered my usual, the Pork Lunch Special. Which consists of plenty of sliced meat, beans (really great beans), mound of fries, coleslaw, and garlic bread. Naturally I smothered everything in Bill’s famous spicy BBQ sauce. “Yum!” is all the heck I can say.
Following that huge lunch, I chilled out in the room for a while, and then chilled down in the cool water of the motel’s nice (and clean) pool. Only bummer? There was plenty of Sun when I got in, but by the time I got out the sky was gray again. After my dip I was off to Wally-World for the one important thing I had forgot to pack this time: SHOES.
I’d driven down in shorts and t-shirt. On my feet were Crocs. Laugh if you must; Unk doesn't worry much about fashion at his advanced age. I just want comfort. I do worry about wet feet, though. Walking through the dew-laden grass Wednesday night left my poor footsies sodden thanks to the Crocs’ trademark (ventilation?) holes. I found a cost effective (12 bucks) pair of tennis shoes—which looked to be Chinese People’s Liberation Army issue but were comfortable enough. I also picked up an inexpensive AA charger. For want of anything better to do, I’d shot a lot more video with my camera than I normally do, and had not brought my battery charger along.
After the Wal-Mart trip there weren’t many hours left till I needed to go back to the CAV. I left the room about six, a little early, because I wanted to shoot some terrestrial pictures for a Sky & Telescope article I am working on. I was pleased to find three of my CAV buddies were now on site and that I wouldn’t be all by my lonesome on the field Thursday. The picture taking went well, but the sky was not looking well at all. Yes, the sundogs were cool, but they foreshadowed only one thing: bad weather.
I didn’t care what the sundogs portended; I was anxious to get started, and when Vega and Arcturus peeped out I got going. Or tried to. Bertha was remarkably well behaved this trip, but Unk wasn’t. I seemed to go out of my way to give the telescope heartburn this trip instead of vice versa. Started up the laptop. Turned on the Xtreme. Booted the camera control software. Got video and crosshairs on the monitor. Ran NexRemote. Pushed the OK button to begin alignment. And got absolutely nothing except a window that announced “INTERNAL ERROR!”
Following that huge lunch, I chilled out in the room for a while, and then chilled down in the cool water of the motel’s nice (and clean) pool. Only bummer? There was plenty of Sun when I got in, but by the time I got out the sky was gray again. After my dip I was off to Wally-World for the one important thing I had forgot to pack this time: SHOES.
I’d driven down in shorts and t-shirt. On my feet were Crocs. Laugh if you must; Unk doesn't worry much about fashion at his advanced age. I just want comfort. I do worry about wet feet, though. Walking through the dew-laden grass Wednesday night left my poor footsies sodden thanks to the Crocs’ trademark (ventilation?) holes. I found a cost effective (12 bucks) pair of tennis shoes—which looked to be Chinese People’s Liberation Army issue but were comfortable enough. I also picked up an inexpensive AA charger. For want of anything better to do, I’d shot a lot more video with my camera than I normally do, and had not brought my battery charger along.
After the Wal-Mart trip there weren’t many hours left till I needed to go back to the CAV. I left the room about six, a little early, because I wanted to shoot some terrestrial pictures for a Sky & Telescope article I am working on. I was pleased to find three of my CAV buddies were now on site and that I wouldn’t be all by my lonesome on the field Thursday. The picture taking went well, but the sky was not looking well at all. Yes, the sundogs were cool, but they foreshadowed only one thing: bad weather.
I didn’t care what the sundogs portended; I was anxious to get started, and when Vega and Arcturus peeped out I got going. Or tried to. Bertha was remarkably well behaved this trip, but Unk wasn’t. I seemed to go out of my way to give the telescope heartburn this trip instead of vice versa. Started up the laptop. Turned on the Xtreme. Booted the camera control software. Got video and crosshairs on the monitor. Ran NexRemote. Pushed the OK button to begin alignment. And got absolutely nothing except a window that announced “INTERNAL ERROR!”
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| Sundogs? Pretty. Clouds? Not so much. |
I did this same silly thing the last time I was down at Chiefland, so I knew what the problem was. In my excitement I’d forgot to turn on the telescope. What I should have done at that point was shut down the computer and start over. Instead, I thought I’d fake Bertha out, just restarting NexRemote after powering on the SCT. No dice. It almost worked, Bertha going to the two alignment stars, but pushing the “Align” button on Arcturus resulted in my scope intoning (via NexRemote’s voice) “Alignment failed.” Shut down the computer, restarted everything, and completed the alignment without a hitch.
Which doesn’t mean I didn’t have any more problems; the sky was becoming a big one. It had looked passable at sundown, but the giant sucker hole that had stretched from Vega to Arcturus was shrinking. It did look like there’d be time enough for a few pretty ones. I started with M3, and when that big globular star cluster faded, I turned south, where the Milky Way was, amazingly, still blazing away. Before clouds moved in I got M8, the Lagoon; M17, The Swan; and a little of M20, The Trifid.
The system I’d worked out for using my itty bitty Orion DVR worked well. I ran the video from the Mallincam to a video switcher with an RCA plug input and multiple RCA outputs controlled by buttons. I plugged the DVR into position 2 and the DVD player I use as a monitor into position 1. With “1” selected, I have a reasonably big screen for focusing and viewing. When I am happy with the object’s appearance, I push “2” to feed the video to the recorder, which I power on and start recording with a push of its cool one-button remote. A video splitter would be even better, but I had the switcher lying around—a refugee from the days of analog cable TV.
Which doesn’t mean I didn’t have any more problems; the sky was becoming a big one. It had looked passable at sundown, but the giant sucker hole that had stretched from Vega to Arcturus was shrinking. It did look like there’d be time enough for a few pretty ones. I started with M3, and when that big globular star cluster faded, I turned south, where the Milky Way was, amazingly, still blazing away. Before clouds moved in I got M8, the Lagoon; M17, The Swan; and a little of M20, The Trifid.
The system I’d worked out for using my itty bitty Orion DVR worked well. I ran the video from the Mallincam to a video switcher with an RCA plug input and multiple RCA outputs controlled by buttons. I plugged the DVR into position 2 and the DVD player I use as a monitor into position 1. With “1” selected, I have a reasonably big screen for focusing and viewing. When I am happy with the object’s appearance, I push “2” to feed the video to the recorder, which I power on and start recording with a push of its cool one-button remote. A video splitter would be even better, but I had the switcher lying around—a refugee from the days of analog cable TV.
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| M13, natch. |
I gladly pulled the Big Switch and headed back to Chiefland proper. At the motel it sure was a traditional Chiefland sign-off: that sainted bottle of Yell and an hour or two of Unk’s fave trash-TV, Ghost Adventures: “Welcome to your final destination, HELL!” I was in a fairly good mood. It had been fun hanging out with my mates, the scope had worked fine, so had the camera, and at least I’d seen a few things. Not that I wasn’t getting a little nervous. Only two nights left and not a single H-object in the can.
How did I fill Friday? More motel breakfast, more relaxing in the room, more surfing the amateur astronomy side of the Internet, a little writing, and—I couldn’t resist—one more visit to Taco Bell. I knew the fast-food-fare wasn't doing me much good, but that Dorito Taco Big Box, which includes a Taco Supreme loaded with sour cream and a humongous burrito, was just too much for me to easily resist. Sigh. Unk's taste doesn't exactly run to the healthy, but at least it runs to the inexpensive.
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| The pool was cool. |
Friday evening, I again left for the site a little early, just after seven, so I could shoot more pix for my S&T article. That done, I hung out with my Chiefland pals and had a high old time. We were all in a fine mood since it seemed obvious the sky would reward us on this night.
And what a night it was. As soon as it got dark the summer Milky Way began to blaze, and kept on doing that all freaking night long. The scope did not do anything dumb Friday evening; again it was me who played dumb. I arranged the Mallincam’s power cable so it was sure to get snagged on the tripod, and that is just what happened. I could not for the life of me figure out why the scope was tracking so poorly till I actually walked over to it and saw what had happened. Doh! Luckily I hadn’t done major damage to camera or cord, and with the cable freed, Bertha began delivering round stars, even in 1-minute (unguided, natch) exposures.
What did I get? Only about seventy Herschels, but, hard to believe, that was all I needed to wrap up the Herschel 2500 phase of The Project: a few scamps in Virgo, Ursa Major, and, of all places, Libra. When the last one was in the can, the fact that I was finished with my initial observing of Will and Lina’s objects was slow to sink in. Didn’t really hit me till the next morning that I was D-O-N-E.
After that last Libra object, I toured around, doing bright pretties and continuing to familiarize myself with the Xtreme’s many controls and settings. Yes, I’ve had the camera since last October, but I haven’t had the opportunity to use it much given the crazy weather since then. By the time I’d hit the hundred object mark, give or take, and had had enough of the dew, which was almost as heavy as it had been Thursday, it was 3 a.m., a good and justifiable time for hitting that cursed Big Switch.
And what a night it was. As soon as it got dark the summer Milky Way began to blaze, and kept on doing that all freaking night long. The scope did not do anything dumb Friday evening; again it was me who played dumb. I arranged the Mallincam’s power cable so it was sure to get snagged on the tripod, and that is just what happened. I could not for the life of me figure out why the scope was tracking so poorly till I actually walked over to it and saw what had happened. Doh! Luckily I hadn’t done major damage to camera or cord, and with the cable freed, Bertha began delivering round stars, even in 1-minute (unguided, natch) exposures.
What did I get? Only about seventy Herschels, but, hard to believe, that was all I needed to wrap up the Herschel 2500 phase of The Project: a few scamps in Virgo, Ursa Major, and, of all places, Libra. When the last one was in the can, the fact that I was finished with my initial observing of Will and Lina’s objects was slow to sink in. Didn’t really hit me till the next morning that I was D-O-N-E.
After that last Libra object, I toured around, doing bright pretties and continuing to familiarize myself with the Xtreme’s many controls and settings. Yes, I’ve had the camera since last October, but I haven’t had the opportunity to use it much given the crazy weather since then. By the time I’d hit the hundred object mark, give or take, and had had enough of the dew, which was almost as heavy as it had been Thursday, it was 3 a.m., a good and justifiable time for hitting that cursed Big Switch.
Back at the motel I had a (very) quick look at Cloudy Nights and it was time for bed. Frankly, I was still on a high from a great night of observing, and didn’t feel that tired, but the clock insisted it was after four, and I figgered I had better turn in. I planned on going at least till midnight Saturday, which, it appeared, would be even better than Friday had been.When I awakened just before 11 a.m. Saturday morning, it hit me like a ton of bricks: “The Herschel 2500 is finished!” The next thing to hit me was a sinking feeling to the tune of “What do I look at now?” The answer is something I am calling “The Herschel Project Phase II.” What that will involve is me taking DSLR shots of some of the best of the best, and doing a lot of sketches. I plan on sticking mostly to the Herschel 400 for Phase II, but we will see where my observing leads me. If The Project is ever to evolve into a book I will need plenty of (still) astrophotos and sketches. I will probably also go back and re-video quite a few objects with the Xtreme, especially the Virgo-Coma crew, most of which were done with my old black and white Stellacam II.
One thing is sure: at the height of a hot southern summer the idea of simple visual observing and sketching with my Dobsonian, Old Betsy, under cool fall skies is mighty appealing. I'll never forget one of the earliest Herschel Project runs on a chilly night at the Deep South Regional Star Gaze nearly three years ago. In the coldest and darkest reaches of the night I could have sworn William and Caroline were standing at my side.
Saturday was supposed to be the best day weather-wise of my time Down Chiefland Way, and that’s how it started. It was hot, but not crazy hot, and there were very few clouds. Not at first. I kept a wary eye on the sky all morning, and was pleased at the way it was shaping up. After lunch, which consisted of a comparatively healthy po-boy from the Wally-World deli, I could see some weather moving in, but I reassured myself with “Just a few clouds off the Gulf; they will be gone at sunset.”
 |
| Did not like the look of that. |
Out at the site, our company had grown to five observers including the Rodster, and we were in an even jollier mood than we were Friday night, eating pizza on the field and joking around. I shot a few more images of scopes and observers for my magazine article and then opined to all and sundry that I might not stick to the midnight-turns-into-a-pumpkin rule I normally exercise on my last night at CAV. The sky was just looking too good. It was looking to be a spectacular night.
Uh-huh. You know what they say about hopes being dashed? And pride going before a fall? So it was. All of a sudden, clouds were ringing the site, clouds writhing with lightning. It didn’t appear these storms were moving toward us quickly, but it looked like the one to the east was coming our way. The Clear Sky Clock (yes, we have wi-fi on the CAV observing field thanks to the kindness of one of the residents) indicated a chance of clearing around 11 p.m.
That settled it for me. With the prospect of packing and the drive home, I didn’t feel like I could wait till eleven to get started observing. I’d got scope and gear ready, hoping the nasty storms would trundle off, but I now covered the SCT, packed computer and video equipment and headed to town.
Back in my cozy room, I couldn’t help feeling let down. I had been counting on Saturday night. On the other hand, it wasn’t like I had Herschel 2500 objects left to observe. Since it was barely 10:30, I stayed up for a while with the mucho ridiculous Chasing UFOs, which is a lot like Ghost Adventures, Finding Bigfoot, and Ghost Hunters, but with UFOs as the quarry. I spent an hour watching this entertaining foolishness (“DID YOU SEE SOMETHING?!”) before turning in in preparation for the drive back to The Swamp in the morning.
Uh-huh. You know what they say about hopes being dashed? And pride going before a fall? So it was. All of a sudden, clouds were ringing the site, clouds writhing with lightning. It didn’t appear these storms were moving toward us quickly, but it looked like the one to the east was coming our way. The Clear Sky Clock (yes, we have wi-fi on the CAV observing field thanks to the kindness of one of the residents) indicated a chance of clearing around 11 p.m.
That settled it for me. With the prospect of packing and the drive home, I didn’t feel like I could wait till eleven to get started observing. I’d got scope and gear ready, hoping the nasty storms would trundle off, but I now covered the SCT, packed computer and video equipment and headed to town.
Back in my cozy room, I couldn’t help feeling let down. I had been counting on Saturday night. On the other hand, it wasn’t like I had Herschel 2500 objects left to observe. Since it was barely 10:30, I stayed up for a while with the mucho ridiculous Chasing UFOs, which is a lot like Ghost Adventures, Finding Bigfoot, and Ghost Hunters, but with UFOs as the quarry. I spent an hour watching this entertaining foolishness (“DID YOU SEE SOMETHING?!”) before turning in in preparation for the drive back to The Swamp in the morning.
Out at the CAV Sunday a.m., I expected to hear my fellow Chiefland Observers expound on the way the sky had magically cleared just after I left, as it always seems to do. After all, I hadn’t heard any thunder or the sound of rain back in town Saturday night. It appeared that for once that was not what happened. My buddy Carl said the lightning had continued after I’d departed, and that when a wind with a threatening feel to it had sprung up, one and all decided it was time to get under cover.
Then came the saddest thing, the “All Good Things” thing. Time to pack the vehicle and get on the road for home. This had not been a perfect outing, one night and a little more of observing out of four. But I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do, putting the principal observing for The Herschel Project to bed. And I know you can only expect so much from a Florida summer sky. I knew that very well, muchachos, but I still wanted more. My thirst for the deep sky didn’t come close to being slaked this time. Translation? “Just want to come back soon.”
Next time: Space Summer Redux…
 |
| Spooky! |
Postscript:
Despite the weather, this was one classic Uncle Rod Chiefland expedition. If not the best, it's in the top two or three at least. Alas, by 2012 change was coming that would make the place different from what it had been over the previous decade.
I continued my Chiefland Observing Expeditions for the next three years after this entry, but only spoke to the new owner of the Clark property once (briefly) and he definitely did NOT seem overly pleased to make my acquaintance. Just didn't seem very friendly--not to me, anyhow. The feeling sure was different compared to the days when the ever-ebullient Tom Clark could be found strolling the field or chasing around on his golf cart at any hour.
The big news in this article, was that this was it. I'd been all the way through the Herschel Project. I'd seen and usually imaged all 2500 of its deep sky objects. What I didn't realize at the time was that the H-Project would turn out to be the observing project of a lifetime.
Probably, anyhow. Who's to say I won't come up with some crazy program sometime soon that puts the Herschel Project to shame? But in the five years since I finished the Project, I haven't. Maybe the stars just haven't aligned the way they did that spring when I read Julie and Julia and The Scientific Papers of Sir William Herschel in quick succession and became inspired. Lately, I've contented myself with bright and pretty deep sky objects, and that seems to be OK for now.
What else? Some random observations...
It's foolish to try to make conclusions about the weather from the perspective of five or ten years. BUT...it certainly seems to me that the Chiefland weather patterns have changed. There used to be clear summer nights aplenty. Since 2012? Not so much.
Reading this article has given me a yen to get my old Mallincam Xtreme out again. Yes, it's an analog camera, but these modern digital video cams have a lot of trouble doing what it could do easily. As in showing scads of PGC galaxies in 20 - 30-second exposures.
The Taco Bell Dorito Tacos are back. Dare I?
I miss my long gone NexStar 11. Mostly. There's one thing I do not miss about her: the cord-wrap problems inherent in an alt-azimuth mount. Today, with polar alignment so easy and precise thanks to Sharpcap and Polemaster, there's no reason not to use a GEM for video astronomy. Oh, and I don't miss her weight either, which was the reason I sold her.
Can you believe Ghost Adventures is still on the air?
I used to have a tendency to get nervous on a dark observing field by myself. No more. That's one of the more positive changes I've experienced over the last three years.
If there were still a Holiday Inn Express in Chiefland I might be tempted into a July expedition down Chiefland way even now.
Switching to a digital video recorder from a DVD recorder was one of the things that really sped up the H-Project as I passed the halfway point.
I still haven't eaten better barbecue than what I had at Bill's during the heyday of the Herschel Project. Oh, and their old fashioned salad bar was also crazy good.
Sometimes it's hard to believe I regularly observed 100 or more objects a night during the Project. Today, most of my imaging is with a DSLR where I essay one or two DSOs an evening.
Yes, the Days Inn was déclassé, but having a cool and dry room, cable TV, a decent breakfast, and a pool to cool down in on those hot summer afternoons is what more than anything else allowed me to easily observe past 3 am every night.
One reason CAV was such a treat in these years was that I was working my you-know-what off at my engineering job. Not only was I assigned to the LPD (landing ship) project in Pascagoula, I was regularly commuting to the Avondale Yards in New Orleans. A weekend of fun at CAV was just heaven.
Finally, as posts occasionally do, Space Summer Redux about that fun birthday those years ago, has inexplicably dropped out of the archive on your left. It is still available just like always, however. Click the link above and you'll see it. One of my favorites, muchachos.
All else I can add is that talking to one of the former CAV regulars recently--one of the organizers of the last (2015) Chiefland Star Party, who shall remain unnamed--revealed he and several others have, like your old Uncle, finally reached the "I have had enough" stage and have not been back. Shame. But there's only one constant in this world--change, much as I hate it, muchachos.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Happy Birthday Unk--Chiefland Style!
Actually, your old Uncle Rod celebrated the latest in a long series of birthdays just before he departed for the Chiefland Astronomy Village for his latest Herschel hunt. You will hear all about Unk's Apollo 11 anniversary week birthday celebrations the week after next. And next week you will get the details on the latest Herschel Project runs under Florida skies.IN OTHER WORDS, as you old timers know, when Unk is on the road you will be cheated out of your accustomed Sunday morning read. Below are a few pictures to tide you over. If you are a newbie here, let me add that there is six years worth of The Little Old Blog from Chaos Manor South here, with each and every article presented in Unk's inimitable (ahem) style. Look on these as "summer reruns" to get you caught up on the goings on 'round the The Old Manse. Anyhoo, see you bright and early next Sunday, muchachos!..
Next Time: More Herschel Project fun...
Sunday, July 15, 2012
The Parade’s Gone By
As my fellow
old-timers will agree, amateur astronomy has changed in the last half century—though
opinions will differ on whether that’s been for the good or bad. I don’t think
much remains the same as it was in the mid-sixties when Unk got started. Well,
I’ll qualify that statement to say, “Everything has changed about the gear we use.” Amateur astronomy has not
changed in that it is still a special sort of pursuit for a few thoughtful
people fascinated by The Great Out There.
One other
thing that has not changed is that amateur astronomers are obsessed by telescopes.
That being the undeniable case, I thought it would be fun to take a look at
what has changed in the equipment market. Dang near fifty years is a long, long
time, but I was still amazed to sit down with the June 1966 copy of Sky and Telescope magazine and
see just how many of the oh-so-famous telescope makers in that issue’s
advertisements are not just gone, but long gone, and usually barely
remembered.
Edmund
Edmund
I’ve said it
before and I will say it again: in the sixties and well into the seventies,
Edmund Scientific WAS U.S. amateur astronomy. Their ad in the June 1966 Sky and Telescope is a full page, but is
not lavish. It’s mostly made up of little black and white pix, some of which
don’t even concern the company’s astronomy products. Didn’t matter. We all knew
Edmund was it, where most of us went or
wanted to go for what little astro-stuff we could afford.
That
continued well into the eighties, though Edmund’s prominence in the
astro-market had been waning since the seventies. What changed Edmund Scientific
was the retirement of its founder, Norman Edmund,
and, more than that, the change in amateur astronomy. By the seventies’ end,
the traditional Newtonians sold by Edmund and most other U.S. scope manufacturers
were on their way out, displaced by the new Dobsonian Newtonians and by the
higher tech and more astrophotography-capable Schmidt Cassegrains sold by those
west coast upstarts, Celestron. Unlike some of their competitors, Norman’s son
and his staff had the sense to cut back on scopes, and were thus able to keep
on trucking.
Edmund
Scientific is still around, but it’s not the Edmund it used to be; it’s been
split in two. There’s Edmund Optics, which is
the direct descendant of the original company, but its focus is different.
Mostly it’s devoted to selling optical and other “scientific” supplies to
industry and the educational market, mostly the latter, I would guess. Like similar
outfits, many of their prices are high and nobody other than a secondary school
or college would consider paying them. They do still sell the famous Edmund RKE
eyepieces for reasonable prices, but last time I checked the catalog, they were
listed as microscope eyepieces. Sigh.
The other
half of the cleaved Edmund is “Scientifics,” the consumer part of the business,
which is independently owned, having been sold off some years ago. Not that that
made much difference. The stuff they are selling is about what Edmund
Scientific was offering before the sale. There’s even astro-gear. Amazingly, some
of the old stuff is still there, like Sam Brown’s How to Use Your Telescope and The
Mag 5 Star Atlas. Telescopes, though?
All that’s left in the catalog or on the website other than Celestron and Meade
products is the little Astroscan.
Criterion
If there was
a competitor for Edmund in the hearts and minds of li’l Rod and his amateur buddies
of fifty years ago, it was Criterion. They won us over by selling a line of
Newtonian telescopes that were more reasonably priced than most and also performed
better than most. Especially the RV-6 six-inch,
which even staunch Edmundite Unk had to admit was a cut above Norman’s Super
Space Conqueror. Uncle Rod and many other amateurs still love and use that
simple but effective telescope even unto this day.
What happened
to Criterion? The same thing that caused Edmund to move to the shallow end of
the astronomy pool: SCTs. Unlike Edmund, however, who knew how to read the
cotton-picking tea leaves, Criterion decided to take on Celestron on their own
turf, producing a line of Schmidt Cassegrains, the Dynamaxes. You can read the
whole gory story in my Used CAT Buyer’s Guide, but the bottom line is
that Criterion was unable to produce consistently good Schmidt Cassegrains.
That was purty
disappointing for us Criterion fans who had expected great things from the
company given the (relatively) high quality of their German mount reflectors.
Luckily for them, Criterion’s owners, a father and son, knew when to give up
the ship and bailed out in 1982 just before the Halley debacle, selling the
company to Bausch and Lomb. The then-huge B&L no doubt thought they might
do some serious business with SCTs with the big Comet on the way. While B&L
did turn out a good CAT in the form of the 8-inch 8001 Pro, by the time they
found their feet in the bidness the astronomy gear crash was upon us and they quickly
shut the whole thing down.
While some
of the old telescope companies survive, at least in shadow existences, and
some, like Edmund, are more or less still in the astronomy game, nothing has
been heard of Criterion since the 1980s. I’ve halfway expected B&L or
somebody else to resurrect the name and plaster it on cheap imported scopes
from China, but that has not happened, which is maybe a good thing.
Jaegers
Third place for
Unk and his fellow penniless teenage amateur astronomers of the Age of Aquarius
was occupied by a little company out of Lynbrook, New York, A. Jaegers. They
didn’t sell telescopes other than the occasional Tasco, but they sold dern near
everything else. Lotsa WWII surplus, but, most of all, amateur telescope making
components. Tubes, focusers, complete GEM mounts, primary and secondary mirror
mounts, even mirror making kits.
Jaegers had
a big two page ad in Sky and Telescope,
but they ran the exact same ad month after month for over a decade, which led
to young Unk considering them a little low-rent compared to, say, Edmund. That
didn’t stop me from buying from ‘em of course—quite the opposite. Being as
bereft of funds as a twelve year old amateur astronomer can be, their stuff was
a god-send. Just a year or two after the June ’66 issue of S&T appeared in
the folks bright green mailbox, I took the bit between my teeth and used the $11.95
I’d laboriously saved (and begged from Daddy) and bought one of Jaegers’
“Astronomical Kits,” to grind and polish my own 6-inch mirror.
What
happened to Jaegers? The same thing that happened to Edmund and Criterion: the wind-change
in astronomy. By the 1980s, the ATM market had begun to collapse. Us teen astronomers from the 1960s now had the
money for store-bought telescopes, and didn’t have time for ATMing what with
getting careers and marriages started. The period at the end of the Jaegers sentence
was a fire that caused severe damage to their shop.
A. Jaegers
is remembered fondly, not just for their Newt parts and pieces, but for their
achromatic objectives. Their 4, 5, and 6-inch lenses and the refractors
amateurs fabricated with ‘em are sought after and can fetch surprising amounts
of moola today. And Jaegers may not be completely gone, continuing in a ghostly
existence today. A couple of years ago good buddy Phil Harrington reported that
Jaegers has a storefront in Millbrook New York, and I see Jaegers stuff for
sale on Surplus Shed’s website every now and then.
Cave
If there is
a company amongst the old guard that is as well thought-of or maybe even better
thought of today than they were in 1966, that is Cave Optical, the maker of the
famous Astrola GEM Newt telescopes. They were a big presence in S&T in the
sixties and on through the seventies, and were much admired by us in the peanut
butter and jelly brigade, though there was no way we could afford Mr. Thomas
Cave’s creations. Adding to their mystique and reputation were the facts that
Cave was not just the owner of the company; he was an observer of legendary
repute. And Astrolas were the choice of the day’s top names in amateur
astronomy—folks like pioneering astrophotographer Evered Kreimer.
Were Cave’s
telescopes as good as their reputation? Has that held up over time? Mostly yes
to both. Not all Cave optics are good, some are bow-wows. Most, however, are pretty good, and some, especially
those done by Cave’s superstar optician, Alika Herring, are superb. The scopes
themselves, the mounts and OTAs, are OK, but not that great by today’s
standards. Those long, gleaming white tubes and big GEM mounts look cool even
now, but in typical 60s fashion they are shakier than they look.
Cave could
probably have carried on through the 1990s and beyond despite the changing
market due to the stellar reputation of Astrola Telescopes. Alas, Tom Cave, who
was Cave Optical, was forced to
retire in 1979 due to failing health and sold the company.
“Astrola” is
still alive, off and on at least, with Hardin Optical, who purchased the rights
to the name, occasionally marketing eyepieces and other gear under that brand.
Certainly Cave is alive today for amateurs who appreciate a good Newtonian. Prices
for used Astrolas continue to climb, and the dream of many amateurs is finding
a big honking 10-inch or 12-inch at a yard sale for fifty bucks. Unk? After
admiring Astrolas in the pages of The Magazine for a decade, he fulfilled his
dream by purchasing an 8-inch in the 1970s. Only to find it really wasn’t the
scope for him. So it goes.
Starliner and Optical Craftsmen and
Pacific Instruments
I lump these
three together because I don’t know a whole lot about the businesses that
produced them. I have used their scopes, so I do know something about those,
however. The bottom line is that the three produced traditional Newts not much
different from any of the others on the market. Pacific Instruments did add a
few semi-innovations to their mounts, but not enough to really make them stand
out. The optics? I’ve used all three brands in numbers that reflect the small
numbers produced. Pacific Instruments scopes generally impress. Starliner sometimes does. Optical Craftsmen? Not so
much.
What
happened to these companies is what happened to all the other small/garage businesses
in astronomy in the seventies-eighties. Pacific and Optical Craftsmen, anyway. Starliner
continued on until at least the mid 1990s, even running small ads once in a
while. I doubt they produced many telescopes—if any—after the 80s, though. A
buddy of mine gave ‘em a call out of curiosity in the early 1990s. The person
he spoke to—maybe the company’s owner—didn’t seem much interested in
telescopes, and was especially not interested in selling telescopes.
Unitron
Ah Unitron,
Unitron, Unitron. By god, they are
still some beautiful telescopes. In The Day, their ads in Sky and ‘Scope, one
full inside page and the back cover, were almost holy. ‘Course their prices, which began at 125 bucks for a 60mm
alt-azimuth refractor, made little Rod want to holler “Holy spit!” (this is a family oriented blog, y’all) when
Mama wasn’t around. $125.00 in 1966 greenbacks is equivalent to about $1000.00
now, and Unitron’s prices just went up from there. Neither Unk nor any of his
pals in The Backyard Astronomy Society were ever able to order a telescope from
that vaunted address in Massachusetts—though one kid in the neighborhood, not
one of our members, did score the 2.4-inch Model 114—despite the hours we spent fantasizing over the little Unitron
catalog.
Unitron
telescopes were high in quality and are still fairly impressive today. Their
achromatic objectives can’t hold a candle quality-wise to modern refractor
glass, of course, but they still do pretty well given their high f/16ish focal
ratios. You probably won’t be surprised to learn Unitron telescopes are highly
sought after today by aging baby-boom astronomers attempting to relive or
rewrite their youth. Over on the Cloudy Nights
Classic Telescopes bulletin board, the mere mention of the U-word causes an immediate stampede of fanboys.
What killed Unitron?
Like everybody else, they were hit hard by the recession of the seventies, and
even moreso by the growing interest in astrophotography. Imaging Stephan’s
Quintet with an f/16 scope did not have much appeal, after all. Most fatally,
the Japanese company Unitron bought its parts/scopes from, Nihon Seiko, went
out of business. Unitron continued selling refractors and mounts through the
80s, and their website showed a couple of telescopes in the product lineup as
recently as the late 1990s (though I doubt they could have supplied one by
then). Unitron is actually not dead; it is still alive selling microscopes.
If little
Unk had read the above paragraph in 1966 he would have been shocked to learn
that Unitron did not make its own scopes. He would have been doubly shocked to
learn that most of the parts used to make the scopes, and usually the entire
scopes and mounts, were made in Japan, just like the dreaded Tascos. Like Tasco, Unitron (“United
Trading Company”) never made a thing. They imported Japanese parts and
telescopes, just like Tasco. Generally the scopes they sold were of far higher
quality than the Tascos, but not always.
Tasco
Until
recently, you didn’t hear many amateurs talk about Tasco, even though they played
a huge—if often uncredited—role in the amateur astronomy of the 1960s, at least
amateur astronomy as practiced by us younguns. There is no doubt more of us had
Tascos than Edmunds or Criterions.
I went into
the details here, but the fact is Tasco
imported some excellent telescopes, including ones made by or including
components by legendary Japanese companies like Goto and Royal. The dirtiest
little secret of them all? That Ford Pinto of amateur telescopes, the 4.5-inch Tasco
Lunagrosso, was equal to most and superior to some American-made telescopes of
similar aperture.
As I wrote
in the above-linked article, what ended Tasco was the retirement of their owner
coupled with a need, or at least a desire, to compete in the Halley driven
telescope market of the mid 1980s by importing cheaper and cheaper scopes. The
name “Tasco” is still around and on plenty of the inexpensive Chinese telescopes
that inhabit Wal-Mart at Christmastime, but that company has no relation to the
original. The most surprising thing, given how me and my mates used to badmouth
everything Tasco, is how almost any Tasco
telescope is now much desired by, yep, nostalgic Boomer amateurs. Never thought
I’d live long enough to see that, y’all.
And so the parade has gone by. Most of the companies who ran those
drooled-over ads in the summer of 1966 are no more or have changed beyond all
recognition. Do I miss the amateur astronomy of that long gone time? Once in a
while. Who ain’t nostalgic for their youth? And my youth was amateur astronomy. That is tempered, of course, by the
knowledge that I am having just as much or more fun in the amateur astronomy of
today, and am seeing one hell of a lot more. Still, muchachos, when Unk’s eye is
at the eyepiece of his RV-6 it is not unusual to hear him emit the occasional
sigh.
Next Time:
DOWN CHIEFLAND WAY!..
Sunday, July 08, 2012
My Favorite Star Parties: Texas Star Party 2001
The Texas
Star Party, the TSP, is what we Boomers used to call
“a happening.” Close to 1000 hardcore amateur astronomers under the dark skies of
Fort Davis Texas’ Prude Ranch for a week of pedal-to-the-metal observing. As I
have said before in this series, my best star party experiences have not
necessarily been at those held under the best skies, but there is no doubt my
best observing experiences have been
at the TSP. And the everything else ain’t been bad, either, muchachos.
TSP 2001
would be my third pilgrimage to that Mecca of deep sky fanatics. 1999 had been
crazy good. Some folks still think it’s the best year ever, as in, “Whole week of incredible black skies; how long can you go?” The only
bringdowns in 1999 were that it was so crowded we had to set up on the
extra-dusty Lower (Middle) Field, and we couldn’t get a room on the ranch until
we’d been there a couple of days. Still, it was crazy fun and me and Miss
Dorothy resolved to make it back as soon as we could.
What about
my first TSP? TSP '97? The less said about
that the better, I reckon. I and my old Possum Swamp
Astronomical Society observing companions Pat Rochford and Joe Diefenbach, had hoped for a great one, but it was lousy. The star party was held that year in the Texas Hill Country instead
of its normal Prude Ranch home in the Big Bend region of west Texas, and the
weather (among other things) was just not good enough.
D. and I
wanted to do TSP 2000, but there were a couple of flies in that ointment. Mainly
that for us TSP was a massive vacation involving over a week of leave, a
two-day drive from Possum Swamp (if’n you are smart), and a fair amount of $$$.
The real killer, though? The date of the event. Naturally, it shifts to accommodate the
time of the New Moon, and it was not always in the mid-May time frame perfect for us back when Dorothy was teaching. So, TSP 2000 came and went
without us. Sigh.
2001? The
stars were properly aligned again. I don’t know if the Moon was in the Seventh
House or not, but it was New in that perfect May time-frame. TSP 2001 would be
held Sunday 13 May – Sunday 20 May. And it got better. We were able to reserve
one of the “motel rooms” (well, sorta), just off the vaunted Upper Field, the
place where everybody who’s anybody wants to be.
Packing was
not too bad. Since we had that much-coveted Room on the Ranch, we were able to leave the tent and other camping
gear (don’t ask how that worked in 1999) at home. Still, packing a fairly
sizeable scope, Old Betsy, my 12.5-inch truss tube Dobsonian, eyepieces, the ancillary
observing gear, and clothes and everything else we’d need for a week’s stay was
a challenge when it all had to go in a Toyota Camry. We managed somehow. At the
last minute, I recalled Prude Ranch is in a dry county (there still are such
things), and ran out to the green-front store for a bottle of, natch, Rebel
Yell.
Why did I
choose Old Betsy? Couple of reasons. Mainly because of her aperture. At the
time, my next largest scope was my Ultima C8; the NexStar 11 was still a year
in my future. Even if I’d had the NS11 I might have looked askance at taking
her to Prude. Yeah, I know people haul even bigger and fancier scopes out
there—Jason Ware used to bring his 16-inch monster of an LX200—but I couldn’t
help thinking that was asking for trouble given the crazy dust.
By the time
TSP 2001 rolled around, I’d just barely finished cleaning the last of 1999's fine
Prude Ranch dust out of Betsy’s various nooks and crannies (and off her Teflon bearing pads). I used to say the dust is a
blend of the manure of countless generations of horses mixed with plutonium particles
blowing in from Nevada. I don’t know if that is true or not, but the stuff is
nasty. While I didn’t want to expose the U8 to it, I figured my little 60mm
ETX60 go-to scope, “Snoopy,” was expendable
and stuffed him in the overflowing trunk somehow.
The journey
of a thousand miles begins with a single step, they say. Not that I much liked that step.
The first part of the journey, the stretch between Chaos Manor South and
Houston, is as boring as boring can be. About like the trip up I-65 to
Montgomery, but longer and over more poorly maintained Interstate. In 1999,
Miss Dorothy and I stopped in Houston overnight, which made for a punishing
drive on day two. Not this time. We got an early start Saturday morning and
planned to push on at least to San Antonio.
After a stop
for fuel and food at one of the many bar-b-que joints-cum-gas stations
scattered along the Texas Interstate, we were approaching San Antone. We were making good time since, for some
bizarre reason, there were none of the frequent slowdowns for road construction we’d
encountered on the last trip. We were rested, didn’t spy a good stopping place
on the outskirts of or in San Antonio, and decided to press on a while longer,
mindful that “more today = less tomorrow.”
Where to
stop? I thought we shouldn’t go too much farther, since I recalled the next
stretch of I-10, where you leave the Hill Country and enter in upon the real Way
Out West, was barren of motels for a while. The solution presented itself in
the form of Kerrville, Texas, a neat little retirement community 40-miles west
of the big city.
As soon as
we exited I-10, we saw a big Best Western. It was obviously a refugee from the
seventies, but it looked good on the outside, so we took a chance. We were impressed
by the lobby’s condition—the motel had recently been remodeled—the friendliness
of the staff, and, especially, our huge room. Settled in, it was soon
suppertime. We asked the front desk clerk what was good in the vicinity and he
unhesitatingly responded with one word, “Mamacita’s!”
I said a
while back that Huntsville, Alabama’s Rosie’s
Mexican Cantina is Unk’s second
favorite Tex-Mex restaurant. Mamacita’s is his
first. Big dining room (good thing, since the restaurant was full of
prom-going couples that night), big portions, and big Margaritas. They do say everything is big in Texas, but
big ain’t worth a hoot if “good” ain’t also part of the equation. Not only was
there plenty of food, it was fresh.
No frozen bags of tortillas here. They were cranking them out on a big machine
as we watched. I loved the food, and those Margaritas sure helped clear ol' Unk’s
throat of road dust.
Sunday
morning, it was “on the road again.” We were back on I-10 ASAP for the West
Texas portion of the trip, which ought to be boring but ain’t. After you leave
Hill Country, you begin to get real western scenery: mesas and mountains. The
fun of seeing that is offset a little by anticipation.
You know you will soon be hanging out with hordes of like-minded amateur
astronomers and can hardly wait to get to the ranch.
Almost before we knew it, Miss Dorothy and I were taking that well remembered exit and pulling onto Prude Ranch—which is a dude ranch 51 weeks of the year. Driving up to the main building, which houses registration, the dining hall, and the auditorium for presentations and other events, we could see there was a long line of amateurs waiting to sign in. D. suggested I get us a spot on the field while she took care of registration. Has anybody ever had a better wife? I don’t think so.
Almost before we knew it, Miss Dorothy and I were taking that well remembered exit and pulling onto Prude Ranch—which is a dude ranch 51 weeks of the year. Driving up to the main building, which houses registration, the dining hall, and the auditorium for presentations and other events, we could see there was a long line of amateurs waiting to sign in. D. suggested I get us a spot on the field while she took care of registration. Has anybody ever had a better wife? I don’t think so.
Depending on
how many amateurs are registered, there may be as many as three observing
fields in use. Upper, Lower, and one near the front gate. The Lower Field is,
as we found out in ‘99, kinda dusty, and the area out by the gate is mostly
used by RVers who can’t get one of the limited number of hookups adjacent to
the Upper Field. Yeah, everybody wants to be on that Upper Field, and for good
reason. It is less dusty, though any place on Prude is dusty in dry weather, it
is near the motel rooms and the Vendors’ Hall, and, well, it’s where all your buddies
will be.
By midday
Sunday, the field was beginning to fill up, but I was able to snag us a spot
near the southern end. It wasn’t perfect for the most southern of southerly
objects due to a semi-obstructing hill, but it was still good, and I spotted my
old observing buddy, Tom Wideman, nearby. Setting up next to Tom would make
observing that year even more fun than it otherwise would have been.
I got the
scope and other gear unloaded, which was not a huge task, since all there was
was Betsy, who took 15-minutes to assemble, tops; a card table; the star atlas
and a notebook of charts printed with Megastar;
and the eyepieces. I don’t know how the rules read these days, but back then
you were not permitted to leave vehicles on the field or erect tent/dining
canopies except at the field edges. A good thing, since in those days the Upper Field was one
crowded place.
Set up done,
I took a few minutes to look around. Dust would not, it appeared, be the
problem it had been the last time. The rains had come. When we were at Prude for
TSP ‘99, they had not had appreciable rain since the previous November. 2001
was different. It was obvious there’d been wet stuff falling not long ago, and
the sometimes numerous afternoon clouds hinted that could happen again at any
time. Well, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about shoveling dust off my
primary mirror this year.
I drove back
and picked up D., who’d completed our registration, and we went to check out
our room. No, a motel room at Prude ain’t the equal of even one at the Day’s
Inn in Chiefland, Florida, but our room was OK and a dang sight better than a
tent. It was clean and spacious, but there was no point in looking for a refrigerator,
or a microwave, or a telephone, or even a TV. In typical dude ranch fashion,
there was none of that stuff. There was
an air conditioner, though. There is no way you can observe all night long,
night after night, if you can’t get adequate rest in the daytime. If I don’t
have air conditioning in West Texas, this old boy ain’t gonna get no rest.
After we’d
got arranged in the room, some nice star party staffers stopped by to
give us some red lightbulbs and finish blocking our windows. I was still a little new to this "astronomy writer" business and was gobsmacked when one of 'em asked me to autograph her copy of my SCT book! Man alive, I was a celebrity...well...in a small amateur astronomy way, anyhow.
Now it was time for our first meal on the ranch. You have probably heard folks joke about the
quality—or lack thereof—of food at Prude. That has not been my experience. The big
hazard in that regard is you are likely to put on a few pounds before
the star party is over. I know I overdid it on Mexican Food Night in '99, and the meals were even better, we thought, in 2001.
The grub was
both good and plentiful and was served cafeteria-style in an attractive
old-timey-western dining room. Dorothy and I had a great meal Sunday evening,
and afterwards strolled around the ranch house area, reacquainting ourselves
with the many amateurs we only saw at TSP. Yeah, by 2001 the Internet was a
fact of amateur-astronomy life, and made it easier to stay in touch with friends,
but there ain’t nothing like the occasional eyeball QSO, as the hams say.
Talking to
buds was cool, but observing under crazy-dark desert skies was the main course on the
menu. Unfortunately, at Prude in the late springtime you have to wait for that.
Fort Davis is so far west in its time zone that it doesn’t get dark till dern
near 10 p.m. It seemed like it took forever for astronomical twilight to arrive
on Sunday, but when it finally did, Urania put on quite the sky show.
What did I
look at? I was tired and wasn’t in the mood to hunt up stuff like Copeland’s
Septet (no Digital Setting Circles on Betsy back then). I pretty much stuck to the easy stuff this
first TSP night; you know, the bright fuzzies that look good anywhere, but are
mind-blowing from the desert. Best one? Probably M51, which, with the 12mm
Nagler 2, showed more detail in my 12-inch than it does in 18-inchers back
home. The spiral arms were trivially easy. The “bridge” of material connecting
big mutha M51 to little NGC 5195 was easy if not trivial. The face of the
galaxy was peppered with glimmering little field stars that gave the image incredible
depth. Wish y’all had been there.
What was the
experience of observing from the legendary upper field like? I jotted down a
few impressions that first night:
Sunday evening, night one of TSP 2001, and the field is
crowded with happy observers wielding telescopes of every size and description.
At sunset, there’s plenty of conversation, but as the sky darkens to purple and
the desert Milky Way begins to burn, a hush falls over the company and the cool
night air is punctuated only by the whirring of telescope motors. My scope
points to the heart of the Virgo Cluster, whose marvels are without number in
my eyepiece. I’m after the bright and easy Messiers tonight, but I soon almost
lose my way among hordes of normally dim island Universes that aren’t so dim anymore.
Even at TSP
not every moment is quite so cosmic. In the earlier part of the evening a city
boy (I presume) noticed a skunk crossing the edge of the field. The skunk was minding
his own business and not bothering anybody. Mr. City Slicker thought he should
take action; however, “I’ll throw a rock at Mr. Skunk and make him run away.”
Some of us wild-eyed southern boys restrained this worthy before he could bring
on Mr. Skunk’s terrible retribution.
Be ready for
both benevolent and not so benevolent wildlife if you come to TSP. Miss Dorothy
saw her first real roadrunner that year, and she loved watching the ranch
horses run around and play in the twilight. But one night some folks from the
University of Texas who were set up near the motel rooms noticed (luckily) a
rattlesnake curled around a telescope's metal pier soaking up the nice warmth, thank you.
I’d felt a
little weary during the first hours of Sunday night, but I got a second wind
somehow in those dark days before the coming of Monster Energy Drinks.
Suddenly, I felt like I should and could observe till dawn. ‘Twas not to be.
Those dadgum clouds I’d noticed earlier moved back in and shut us down at about
1 a.m. Desert storm cover on Bets, I
headed back to the room. There, the adrenaline rush engendered by the Texas
skies wore off and I was some kinda
tired. A little Yell and it was night-night time.
Next
morning, but not early the next
morning, the first order of bidness was COFFEE. Since there was no demand for
breakfast by late-sleeping observers, the chow hall didn’t open till 11:30 a.m.
Luckily, the vendors’ building was just a short distance from our room and
always had a big urn of coffee brewing. After a swallow or two of the blessed
liquid, I began to feel human again and took a look at the cool astro-stuff on
display.
Good dealer
turnout that year. There was Lumicon, the now-gone Pocono Mountain Optics,
TeleVue, Lymax, Sky Publications, Astronomy to Go, and even our old buddy Rex
of Rex’s Astrostuff among others. I saw plenty of pretties I wouldn’t have
minded having, but I’d resolved to limit my buying this year, since the price
of gas was so high (or so we thought), DANG NEAR TWO BUCKS A GALLON!
That didn’t
mean Dorothy and I didn’t buy anything.
Are you kidding? At TSP? We not only got a copy of Kepple and Sanner’s
two-volume Night Sky Observer’s Guide,
the deep sky observer’s best friend in the days before we all used SkyTools, we were able to get both
authors to autograph the books. That was cool. What was cooler? I was asked for more autographs! A couple of
folks noticed me wandering the Vendor Hall and asked me to autograph copies of Choosing
and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope.
Monday
night? Not so hotsky. Not good at all. It was purty much a cloud-out, with
occasional sucker holes doing little more than teasing the assembled multitude
of amateurs. I stuck it out on the field for quite a while, talking with pals
old and new and checking out their equipment. Every once in a while, I’d head
over to a little kiosk on the field edge where there was a monitor displaying
current weather. But I might as well have saved the shoe leather. It didn’t get
any better Monday. Oh, well, I got a good night’s sleep. This was to be the
last night I’d snooze the dark hours away.
Tuesday
dawned hot, dusty, and clear and stayed that way. The afternoon brought the
first assault by the notorious West Texas dust devils. Dust devils? More like
mini-tornadoes. Unfortunately, there were some folks who hadn’t heeded the warnings
and taken the precautions stressed in the TSP literature and on their website:
stake down your tripod with landscaping nails, leave a Dob depressed in
altitude and free to “weathervane.” There was no major damage, luckily. I saw a
beautiful Orange Tube C8 get levitated, and figured it was a goner, but the
devil let it down surprisingly gently.
If Sunday night
was good, Tuesday night was great. The sky at dark was substantially better than
it had been two days before. I could tell because, as it always is when the
desert sky is in tip-top shape, the sky was not inky black but more a very
dark gray.
I spent the
evening working my way through deep sky guru John Wagoner’s yearly observing
list. Not only are his lists “challenging,” John inevitably directs you to some
wonderful objects you didn’t know existed. The skies were so good I even did
some of the (very) faint fuzzies on master observer Larry Mitchell’s Advanced List.
It was really intended for scopes bigger than my 12-inch, but I ran down some of his
picks, anyway.
Mostly,
though, Tom and I worked on John’s “An Astronomical Odyssey” observing program. In the directions that came with it, Mr. Wagoner asserted
there was a mystery associated with the list, and that TSP could not be responsible for any observers who might be ABDUCTED BY
ALIENS!
 |
| Jeff and Tom |
We slogged
our way through the Odyssey objects, many of which were pretty dadgum tough.
John sent us from a rarely observed planetary nebula in Hercules, to a dark
nebula in Aquila, and everywhere north, south, east and west of that. We had
some theories about the “mystery,” but danged if any of ‘em made much sense. Nevertheless,
we kept going, finishing the list’s 25 objects and moving on to many more until
the sky began to brighten with dawn and a rising old Moon began to interfere.
All was
revealed the next morning (LATE the next morning). When I turned my completed
list in to John to receive my reward, a beautiful pin, he spilled the beans:
“Connect the ‘dots’ of the objects on a large-scale chart and you’ll form ‘2-0-0-1.’”
Doh! The pin, which I still have and treasure, bore a picture of the 2001: a Space Odyssey monolith.
Hard to
believe we were at the halfway point of TSP 2001, but we were. Midweek brought
excellent talks and other daytime activities. Standouts? My late friend Jeff
Medkeff’s presentation on astronomy software, even then an obsession of mine.
Also real good were Larry Mitchell’s deep sky presentation and Tom Clark’s talk
about the development of the Dobsonian telescope.
Since it
doesn’t get dark at Prude till very late, there were early evening talks throughout
the week, too. Timothy Ferris shared a chapter of his forthcoming book Seeing in the Dark, and Steve O’Meara
gave a surprisingly intriguing talk on vulcanology. The star party Keynote
Speaker was supposed to have been (then) new Sky & Telescope Editor Rich Fienberg. Unfortunately, due to a
death in the family he had to bow out. His shoes were ably filled by Mr.
O’Meara. He didn’t have much time to prepare, but his presentation Saturday
night on the green flash was one of the more interesting talks I’ve heard at
TSP or any other star party.
Wednesday
afternoon we took the tour of nearby McDonald Observatory. We’d done it in
1999, too, but it was fun to go up the mountain again. Dorothy and I really
couldn’t get enough of the giant state-of-the-art Hobby-Ebberly Telescope, but the
historic 88-inch Otto Struve Telescope was even more interesting. The almost art-deco looking instrument was in
good shape and its beautiful, antique-looking control console was still present
even though the scope was now run by computers. The observatory gift shop was a
treat, with Unk bringing back a McDonald coffee mug, a couple of beer cozies,
and an excellent book on the history of the facility, Big and Bright.
Wednesday
night? We were back to haze and sometimes sucker holes. It seemed the perfect
time to let Snoopy have a go at the Texas skies. I’d had fun with the little
60mm f/5.8 scope back home, but this fast refractor really came into his own in
the desert. In a 40mm eyepiece equipped with an OIII filter, I had the best
view of NGC 7000, The North America Nebula, I’d ever had in any scope from
anywhere. When the sky was clear, Snoop Doggie Dog had no trouble with even hard
ones like M101.
Thursday
night at first looked like it was gonna be another heartbreaker. Drifting cloud
banks allowed us little or nothing for the first four hours of the evening. But
Tom and I stuck it out, as did most of the residents of the upper field. At 2
a.m. the sky finally opened up, and I do mean opened up. Suddenly, the Milky Way was arching overhead like a
giant burning rainbow.
How did I take advantage of the superb condx? I started out by doing John’s list from the previous year, 2000, “Glorious Globulars.” Later, I even made a little more progress with Larry Mitchell’s objects. How hard were they? Well, one of Larry’s targets was Einstein’s Cross. Need I say I didn’t catch that one?
How did I take advantage of the superb condx? I started out by doing John’s list from the previous year, 2000, “Glorious Globulars.” Later, I even made a little more progress with Larry Mitchell’s objects. How hard were they? Well, one of Larry’s targets was Einstein’s Cross. Need I say I didn’t catch that one?
Best moment
of the night? That came near dawn. Tom had loaded up a new program on his
Macintosh (yes he is one of those
people), that would supposedly allow his LX200 classic SCT to track satellites.
It just so happened the International Space Station was due make a good pass just before sunrise, so he thought we’d give it a try on that. I was skeptical, but it
worked, it really, really worked, tracking the ISS not in fits and starts but
smoothly and accurately. The sight of the ISS, whose solar panels were visible
in the LX200, accompanied by the snuffling of awakening horses, and birds
calling to greet the Sun, was unforgettable.
What was
there to do at Prude in the daytime? When yet another turn around the vendor
hall began to lose its luster, there was Fort Davis. Stop number one there? The
Fort Davis Hotel and Drugstore. The attraction there was the old time soda
fountain. In addition to ice cream treats, The Drugstore offered breakfast, burgers,
and even steaks. It was out of business for a while, I believe, but is now,
thankfully, open again I hear.
Across the
street is the historic Hotel Limpia. It’s a beautiful and beautifully kept old
place, and I’ve often thought that, if I couldn’t get a Ranch Room some year,
the Limpia would be just great. You don’t have to stay there to enjoy it,
though. Their dining room serves awful good grub including insane chicken fried chicken.
Our favorite
day trip destination in 2001 was just down the road from the Ranch, The Davis
Mountains State Park. It was particularly beautiful that year because the
(dratted) rain had caused wildflowers and cacti to bloom with abandon. The
drive up to the top of the mountain along Skyline Drive was beautiful, in part
because it was a beauty that was utterly alien to us back-easters. Stopped at
the park's historic stone building, the North Lookout Shelter, gazing down the
mountain, I thought the valley below us looked like it could have easily been
used for atomic tests. Or it might have spawned the giant spiders and ants and
lizards that haunted the west in all those 50s B sci-fi movies. Slightly
creepy, but pretty.
Friday night
we were back on the roller coaster. The sky was not horrible, but it was
definitely not as good as Thursday. I went on as long as I could, but by early
morning banks of clouds were pouring in. The objects I’d seen earlier had
mostly been brighter ones; even when it looked clear transparency was not good
enough to encourage me to go galaxy cluster hunting.
Saturday
morning, the last full day of TSP, dawned to leaden skies, and worse, light
RAIN. As if that weren’t depressing enough, it was time to begin contemplating
the prospect of the long drive home. Weather reports we were getting were
contradictory, but it did not look like the night would be that hot, so I
decided I might as well pack Bertha in the Toyota in the interests of a quick
getaway Sunday morning.
Surprise! As
sunset approached, the clouds almost magically began to clear. While Tom kindly
offered to help me unload Bertha again, I said, no; I was going to put in a
night of minimalist astronomy. It would
be Snoopy the ETX all the away, assisted by charts generated with Planetarium on my Palm III handheld
computer/PDA.
How well did
that work? I won’t say I didn’t miss Bertha’s big 12-inch eye at times, but it
was amazing how much ground I covered with a 2.4-inch go-to. The wide field
nature of the telescope helped, but, still, the way the computer put every
single object in the field of this inexpensive scope was just slightly amazing.
I spent hours touring along the Cygnus Milky Way, scoping out big open clusters
and dark nebulae that don’t look like much in a large telescope, but come to
life in a little guy.
Which is not
to say I didn’t do some looking through the big guns of my fellow observers.
The field had cleared out a little since the peak on Wednesday night, when it
had been wall-to-wall telescopes, but there were still plenty of observers
going at it. I loved every object I looked at, and even if the sky wasn’t the
best Prude could offer, it sure was better than what I would have had back home. The only
problem? Departure in the morning. “How late will I go?” I compromised and
pulled the big switch at 2:30 a.m.
Come
morning, I was glad I’d put Betsy away early. Sunday’s departure was painless.
Well, not quite painless. Passing under the “Vaya Con Dios” sign leaving the
ranch for the last time did make me a little sad. It had been a good one,
though; I’d seen plenty of stuff, spent lots of time with friends, and even
bought an astro-goodie or three. ’99 was better for observing, yes, but somehow
I still love 2001 best. There was an ineffable something about it that made it
as special as a star party can be.
And that,
muchachos, is the end of my TSP history. If I love it so much, why haven’t I
been back? Well, sprouts, you’ll find as you get older that your career doesn’t
become easier; it becomes more demanding with more responsibilities. That was
true for both me and D. and put an end to our adventures out west. But I am
planning and plotting a return. Maybe in the next three-four-five years. Maybe
with a bigger gun than good old Betsy. Well I can dream, anyway, can’t I?
Next Time:
The Parade’s Gone By…
