Astronomy for Everyone

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.