Sunday, October 2, 2016

#62 - Thursday, September 29 - Sunday, October 2, 2016 - First Star Party!

Normally I wouldn’t put multiple nights together in the same entry, but seeing as I didn’t get to pull out my telescope and it was cloudy every night except Saturday during this weekend star party I went to, it made sense this time.  The star party turned out to be more of a social gathering alone because of the lack of stars, but it was still a lot of fun.  I got to talk about astrophotography to a lot of people, and was even asked to step in and give a talk about it when one of the speakers was unable to attend due to a recent injury.  A lot of people were really excited about my astrophotography, and I was happy to share how I do it.  I was asked to speak at the star party again next year, and possibly at two others!
            
On Saturday night, it did clear up, at least in patches.  Not enough for me to set up for AP, though.  They did their giant 36" reflector up and running.  It was so long that they used a scissor lift to bring up three people at a time to look into the eyepiece.  Between the shifting clouds, I got to look at globular cluster M15, and WOW, what a sight!  With that kind of aperture, you could resolve so many stars!  Even through thin clouds, it was beautiful.  I was really glad I got to see at least something through the big telescope.  I also set up my camera for some long-exposure timelapse.
            
I also got to look through a solar scope that was set up on Saturday – there were no sunspots in view, but three gorgeous prominences were there. 

            
It was damp and chilly the whole weekend, but still a good time!


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