Recharging my Batteries

This year's Stellafane was a landmark for me, in that this was the first year when I truly could not remember for certain how many of these I've attended. I have to admit that I'm an addict. I started going up to Stellafane several years ago when I was fully intending to move to New England, and thought it would be the perfect way to get acquainted with the local astronomy clubs. Well, here I am still in Maryland, and seemingly here to stay. But every summer, I feel the draw of the Vermont mountains, with their dark skies and quaint little towns filled with wonderful restaurants and totally unique art galleries and local crafts shops. I'm always done for the year with my Christmas shopping after a week in Vermont - and this year was no exception. I think I contributed about 700 dollars to the state's economy.

As for Stellafane itself, it's an opportunity to hobnob with hundreds and hundreds (there were as many as 1000 in attendance this year) of like-minded astronomy fanatics. Some of my favorite moments at various Stellafanes have occurred not on the observing field, but in the food tent or up at the Clubhouse, meeting perfect strangers and talking literally for hours about viewing conditions back home, our local clubs, our own and others' equipment, our observing triumphs (and failures), our children and/or grandchildren, the Drake Equation, plate tectonics, hot Jupiters, red dwarfs, meteorite hunting in New Hampshire, World War II, global warming, how amateur astronomy is going to hell in a handbasket, and ten million other topics.

But the meat and potatoes of any star party, whether it be a Carrs Mill Impromptu or a major regional like Stellafane, is what did you see. We had one superb night this year (Thursday), one so-so (Friday), and one cloud out (Saturday). So Thursday was the "Make or Break" evening, as far as observation went. And in my books, it all by itself was worth the 8 and 1/2 hour car ride north.

On Thursday night, I observed:

Venus
Jupiter
Saturn (saw 5 moons)
Mars (could make out the polar cap and Syrtis Major)
The Lagoon Nebula
The Trifid Nebula
The Small Sagittarius Star Cloud (M24) - came back to this again and again!
The Swan Nebula
The Eagle Nebula
The Wild Duck Cluster (M11)
The Dumbbell Nebula
M71 (globular cluster in Sagitta)
The Coathanger
61 Cygni (double star in Cygnus)
Albireo (double star in Cygnus)
Omicron Cygni (triple star in Cygnus)
Barnard's Star
B111 (dark nebula in Scutum)
M22 (globular cluster in Sagittarius)
M4 (with binoculars)
HD 162826 (with binoculars)
Several Perseid meteors (2 of them spectacular!)
The star fields of Cygnus (it spoils it if you look for anything in particular - just look!)
M6 (open cluster in Scorpius) - the last thing I looked at, just before tearing down
The Milky Way (just looked away from the eyepiece and drank it all in)
6 or 7 satellites
The International Space Station

The scope I used that night was my 102mm Stellarvue refractor with a variety of eyepieces.

The conditions were far less promising on Friday evening, so all I set up was my 60mm refractor, because I wanted to be able to tear down at lightning speed if I decided it wasn't worth hanging around. Besides, I could always look through other folks' monster Dobs if I felt like it! That night I had my best eyepiece view this opposition of Mars. Absolutely amazing how big it appeared. I know it wasn't, but damn if it didn't seem bigger than Jupiter. But Mars looked best of all naked eye, like a baleful red eye rising over the tree line. I couldn't get enough of it.

On Saturday, I woke up to wall-to-wall cloud cover and off-and-on rain. But it didn't bother me. I hiked up to the Stellafane Clubhouse and had some great conversations with the people who had entered their scopes into competition. Met one gentleman who had attended every Stellafane since the year I was born (1952)! He talked to me for half an hour about how one tested a newly ground mirror for accuracy, and showed off some equipment used in the process which he had designed and built himself. I admired the work of Sara Schechner who makes astonishingly beautiful astronomically themed quilts (her day job is the David P. Wheatland Curator of the Harvard University Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments). I ran across two young women from Roland Park in Baltimore, attending their very first Stellafane, and discussed the pros and cons of urban astronomy. I spent a good hour with a 77 year old man (whose name I never did get - he wasn't wearing his name tag) who told me his life story, occasionally with tears in his eyes. He was so interesting, I wish I could have taken notes, but that would probably have been rude. I saw (but did not speak to) Al Nagler as he walked by my telescope on the observing field. I hope he noticed my 9mm Nagler eyepiece!

(True Story: A couple of years ago, I was sitting right next to Al for a good 30 minutes during lunch at the food tent, and had no idea who he was. In my defense, I hadn't the slightest idea at the time what Al Nagler looked like. It wasn't until I was getting up to leave that two other people walked over and said hello to him, thus enlightening me to my now totally wasted opportunity to speak with one of my heroes.)

All in all, a great star party, and definitely not my last Stellafane. I look forward to the day when I can bring my now 5 year old granddaughter along with me. (Of everyone in my extended family, she is the most interested in (dare I say obsessed with?) astronomy.)

So here I am, back in light-polluted suburban Maryland, batteries recharged and ready for another year of stargazing!