|
|
 We were all treated to some great solar observing through a friend's C8 that weekend. Pictured is the C8 with my friend George. |
 My friend, Adrian Lozinski, picked up this short focal length 4.5" Tasco reflector for only $50 at the swap meet. I thought it was a good scope, but he thought different. |
The weather forcast looked bleak going into the week leading to the New Jersey StarQuest star party. All had looked lost with showers predicted for the Friday and Saturday we would be there. But what can you do when your money is already in? Make the trip and hope for the best.
At 12:30pm on Thursday, June 5, my father picked me up early from school and the weekend of uncertainty was under way. My friend, my friend's dad, my dad and I had decided to go early and spend Thursday night at a State Forest/Camp Grounds near the town where StarQuest was being held. This would give us a head-start on getting to StarQuest early to pick the best spot to setup.
Once 3:00pm on Friday rolled around, we were able to go down to the observing field and pick out the spot. My dad picked a piece of flat land to park our 22-foot Motor Home on. About 30 feet away was the area where I setup my 8inch Orion Dob.
Many of you might know a fellow on #sciastro, NebM42. That's the guy that I had met on the Internet and invited to StarQuest. He also owns an 8inch Orion Dob. We finally met each other in person, after talking to each other on the phone for the past 6 months. We really hit it off and I'm glad he's a nice guy.
Anyway, getting back to StarQuest, it had been cloudy most of Friday and it looked bad. Adrian (NebM42) and myself roughed it and stayed up until 3:00am when we finally called it quits for the night after observing non-stop clouds up above.
It was really heart-breaking since we knew that Friday was supposed to be the best night. The last we heard it was supposed to rain all day Saturday. What a lousy time we were in for.
However, around 7:30pm on Saturday the southern sky opened up into a beautiful blue. How joyous it looked!! Too bad it wasn't dark yet, you know what I mean? But then the irony comes in when, as night fell, the clouds steadily got thicker and thicker. Our hopes of a nice, and clear, Saturday night had gone down the drain.
It was off and on patchy clouds. Like I said, there was a hole in the southern sky with no clouds. So someone suggested I go for M80. With no hesitation, I aligned my SkyCommander Digital Setting Circles and punched in M80 in Scorpius. It was a tight little globular that really needed averted vision to show up.
Next, the sky around Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) cleared up some and I went after M51. By the time I had it centered and ready to go, clouds had moved in front of it. I got a decent look at it, but not the greatest. A friend lent me his 28mm Edmund RKE which absolutely rocked! Beat the crud out of my 19mm Panoptic on the M51 area.
That's when the thick clouds moved in and everyone packed it in. Those clouds just wouldn't give up. I sat there for a while, and by that time it was now midnight. My friend's dad came over and said I should go to sleep and if it clears he would wake me up. I was really P.O'ed by this time.
Then, with the shrillest of yells, someone screams "WE'VE GOT CLEAR SKIES OUT HERE!!!" It was 2:00am on Sunday morning and I was dead-tired. I only had 2 hours of sleep prior to waking up. But it was now or never.
I threw on my coat and shoes and headed off towards the scope. The sky was unbelievably dark. The Milky Way was there, it was so there. It looked just like a cloud, but this cloud was cool.
Put in my 8.8mm Meade UWA and 2.5x TeleVue barlow and aimed for Jupiter. At 346x, Jupiter just screamed, "Look at my wonderful detail!" That was truely nice. It beat the view of Uranus I would have 5 or so minutes later.
Then I punched in M27 in my SkyCommander and moved the scope until the computer read 360.00 00.0 and I was lined up. There she was, the best object I would view all weekend. The fuzzy blob that had the faint detail of thinning towards the middle (like a Dumbbell). My 19mm Panoptic got a work out since my 2" 30mm wide just wasn't going to cut it, only yielding 41x.
That's about all the deep-space observing I did that weekend since I moved the scope over to Saturn after admiring M27. Spending about 15 minutes on Saturn I finally noticed it was getting less and less bright - the sky was starting to grow brighter due to the sunrise. Then finally Saturn was lost in the glow of the sun.
I put my eyepieces back in my accessory case and went to bed for a second time. Later that morning my friend took out his solar filter for his 8" Celestar and everyone in our area in the observing field was treated to some sun spots and even a few white blotches surrounding the sun spots. A 35mm Celestron Ultima eyepiece was being used which fit the entire disc of the sun into the FOV.
The weekend definately wasn't the best Star Party I would end up being to that summer, but it was a good spring-board. Meeting my new friend, Adrian, seeing his scope for the first time, talking with all great guys about their scopes and eyepieces really made the weekend one to remember! Will I be attending StarQuest '98? I doubt it.