Astronomy for Everyone

Wednesday was the day to go into Key Weird (that's Key West for those of you not familiar with the Florida Keys), waste away in Margarittaville, and have a Cheeseburger in Paradise. I opted out but the guys all got into Dave's Lincoln Town Car and headed out. I took my DSLR and wandered the entire beach and campsite to take pictures. The damage from Hurricane Georges in 1999 was still evident. Large uprooted trees littered the beach area at the west end. I spotted a scope set up on a rock on the beach at the far west end of the campsite. When the guys got back they all took naps in preparation for a good night's observing. The wind was still blowing at a pretty good clip, but we hoped it would die down by nightfall. At 3:30 p.m. we gathered the club members beachside and scattered some of Rick Donnelley's ashes on the beach. We toasted his memory back in the swamp, then got in line for the barbeque that the host club, Southern Cross Astronomy Society, was throwing for all participants that night. We stuffed ourselves with beef, pork, chicken, beans, coleslaw, and ice cream. Wind and clouds and too much toasting with Courvoisier VSOP had us all in bed by midnight.

It was Thursday and the wind had finally dropped. That night turned out to be THE night! Several of us clustered around Vic Menard's 22" StarStructure and what a night we had! We got the PUP!!! without a filter. It was readily visible even though it's not at maximum separation. From there we did one gorgeous planetary nebula after another. NGC 2440, The Bipolar, looked fantastic through Vic's new 8mm Ethos. So did just about everything else. One funny moment came when Vic turned the scope to the Eskimo, and started babbling an incoherent description to his wife Lynne. None of us had the slightest idea what Vic said but Lynne understood perfectly. We then looked at M81 and M82. Vic noticed what he called "glitter" sprinkled all over M82. I figured the brownie he'd just eaten was a "funny" brownie, but no, I saw it too. So did everybody else. None of us had ever seen that effect before. We also saw a bit of "glitter" on M81. After several hours of excited observing, some clouds came up and sprinkles of rain spattered our faces. The scope was quickly covered and I went to bed at 4:00 a.m. What a night!

The wind was still blowing the hair off our heads Tuesday morning. We adjusted the tarps on The Swamp and put down more anchor lines. It was my job to pound in the stakes because for some reason I was the most skilled stake-hammerer in the group. After that I had to put out white flagging tape so people wouldn't trip over the anchor lines in the dark. I tripped over one of the big stakes in broad daylight while taping, to the general amusement of my fellow Swamp Rats. The day also brought cloud cover but none of us were too fussed at that. This was, after all, the Florida Keys. The weather could change in a matter of minutes. We all went to the vendor area to find the latest in astro-goodies. There were plenty there. Two vendors already had the new 17mm Ethos and Dave was drooling over the 8mm. Kent and I had to check out the latest fun stuff at Astronomy 2 Go, and Jerry was in search of a new Telrad. Vic Menard and George Fleenor, two other members of the club, were trying to use one of the many Coronado solar set-ups on display, but clouds were disparagingly prevalent and George had used practically his entire vocabulary of swear words already. We all went to Rob's Island Grill on Big Pine Key for dinner. Half the restaurant patrons were fellow club members. Almost everyone had some type of seafood, but I got my favorite French Dip sandwich. That turned out to be a wise move. Two club members hit the rack early with lower-digestive tract problems that may or may not have been related to the food. One guy, Bob Gully, was laid up for 2 days! YIKES! By nightfall, it was clear that we weren't going to get any observing in at all. The winds were howling straight out of the east and the clouds weren't letting up. There was a sucker hole straight up in the sky - crap! Dobson's Hole........ We yakked until the wee hours of the morning instead, with an occasional view through binoculars.

Monday morning came with some pretty hefty winds. We struggled to get up the side curtains on The Swamp that sheltered us from both the wind and sun. A couple of us were already sporting noses that showed signs of too much sun, so the sunscreen came out as well. Early afternoon found us driving to Cudjoe Key and the Square Grouper, fast becoming one of our favorite restaurants. This place is great! All the plates, bowls, cups, etc., are square or rectangular, the tables are covered with large sheets of paper, and square glass containers of crayons form the centerpieces. We all got the famous Square Grouper Sandwich, which is literally a square piece of grouper on square buns with the world's best onion rings on top, and served with fries, slaw, and Key Lime tartar sauce. Getting through the whole plate is a major accomplishment, but I actually managed to do it for the first time ever. We got back to camp with the wind gusting at 30-35 mph. Tarps were flapping like mad and several people had disassembled scopes and other equipment. We figured the wind would die down by nightfall, but we were wrong. It was so bad out on the berm we felt like we were being beat to death. Half the time was spent trying to hold down things like mirror covers, tarps, and atlases. Using a Dob in winds like that is a real chore, so we had to admit defeat and slink back to The Swamp to swap lies. Bugger!!!

We got up bright and early on Sunday morning and headed into Big Pine Key and the Crack'd Egg for breakfast. When we got back to Camp Wesumkee, we went out to the berm and assembled the 3 telescopes we brought. Jerry Lowrey had followed us in his truck with his 18" Starmaster. We got Jerry's scope up but discovered that the RS-232 jack on his black box was broken, so Jerry shoved a piece of a toothpick into the plug with the jack so that it would make contact. Astronomers are nothing if not inventive. We also got Kent's 12.5" Starmaster (my old scope) up and collimated, and then helped Dave finish off with his 18" StarStructure. We covered the scopes and waited for it to get dark by visiting with other club members and friends we hadn't seen since WSP last year. Preston and Liz Starr had come out all the way from Texas. I hadn't seen them since WSP 2007 so Liz and I had a lot of catching up to do. We made do with what Dave call's "pig food" for dinner. Each of us had brought food in cans, like Chef Boyardee, canned spinach, canned fruit, you name it, and ate it straight out of the can. I had brought an entire case of Coke on ice and Kent and I had already gone through several cans by the time it got dark. We took our eyepiece cases out to the berm and started alignments, only to discover that Jerry's Telrad was dead and without an alignment, he couldn't get his drive system working. Kent's scope had no drive so he and I had a ball looking for things the old-fashioned way. The seeing wasn't great and the transparency could have been better but it was clear. Later on, at about 11:00 p.m. we got Eta Carinae, NGC 3275, in Kent's scope. It wasn't the best view because there was light cloud cover over the ocean in the deep south, but we got it with no problem. Kent and I went through several objects, while Dave and Jerry fussed with drive systems. We hit the rack at about 2:00 a.m. after views of the Coal Sack and the Jewel Box in Crux. Great night!

This year marked the 25th anniversary of the Winter Star Party and the members of SCAS did not disappoint. We left Bradenton on Friday night, 2/20, at 10 p.m. I rode down with my long-time observing partner, David Gracey, and our good friend Kent Hays. After 3 coffee stops and a gas stop, we got down to West Summerland Key at 5:40 a.m. on Saturday to wait in line. We all tried to take catnaps in the car, but the only one who was successful was me, curled up in the front seat. About 4 hours later the sun and my bladder got me up and I trekked about 1/4 mi. up to the front gate to hit the porta-potty. We got out lawn chairs and iced tea and socialized with other astronomers until it was time to go in at about 1 p.m. From then on it was a lot of hard work. We had to unload the trailer, set up scopes, pitch tents and canopies, get out lawn chairs, and get everything set up for the week. Kent and I were sharing a huge cabin tent; it took 4 people to get it set up. Once done, we zipped shut the "wall" between the two rooms and Kent and I had our own private 10x10 spaces. Sleeping bags and cots followed, and after about 4 hours of hard work, we had the Swamp (Dave's big canopy) set up, and were ready to rock and roll. But hours of hard work, plus no sleep, drove us to bed pretty early. We were all too tired to get the scopes fully set up and collimated, so we contented ourselves with binoculars and a relatively early bedtime.