ASCC Star Party

by Robin Casady

ASCC plans to use Garland Ranch Park for public events, not for personal observing sessions. When the ranger goes home, we have to go home. She was going to stay until about 10:00 pm, but we got clouded out at about 9:00 so we tore down early. It is a fairly dark site, I think it is darker than Fremont Peak usually is. There is some glow to the north from Salinas, but nothing to the south. There are houses scattered around the hills on the other side of the valley, but not too close.

The party went well. We had publicity on KSBW and an article in the Monterey Herald. We set up in a line along a dirt road that is used by authorized vehicles only. There were perhaps eight cars (I didn't count) and at least that many scopes. The hills to the south obscured Jupiter and Mars, but Saturn put on a good show. Again I had many comments that I must have a photo hidden in the Takahashi TSC. I stayed on Saturn for quite a while because people kept saying I had the best view in the Tak. Four moons could be seen. Saturn seems to be the all-time public favorite object. When I got to the Orion Nebula it was glorious and much enjoyed. A number of people (especially children) could identify the colors of aqua and red. They all seemed to appreciate looking at stars being born. Low clouds pushed me back to Saturn.

A TV station brought a camera and video lights. Arthur Babcock (ASCC president elect.) consented to be interviewed, so he didn't get much observing done. I wonder if they edited out my shouting "Turn off the white flashlight, please." :-) I didn't know it was video. Even so, I have mixed feelings about it. It is nice to get the publicity, but this was a new moon party with an emphasis on deep sky. Is the publicity worth the damage the lights do to the event? The next few MIRA-ASCC public star parties will be moon parties, so it wont matter so much.

Before this star party I put together a flier, at Arthur's suggestion, that was based on one given out by a Los Angeles group. They were good enough to let us steal some of their text. The flier contains short writeups on the Sun, Moon and planets. It also describes the basic types of deep sky objects. B&W illustrations give rough approximations of what they look like through amateur scopes. Some of the photos were from NASA and some were my own. Some of the flier is duplicated on the ASCC web page at:

http://major.mira.org/ascc/pages/flier.htm

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Posted on sf-bay-tac Jan 26, 1998 02:38:48 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Feb 20, 2005 15:24:49 PT