Girl Scout Star Party

by Gary Manning

Last Friday evening I assisted the SVAS put on a star party for the girl scouts at Garcia Bend park in the Pocket area of Sacramento. The star party was originally scheduled for sometime last October or November but was canceled due to bad weather. My daughter's girl scout troop was attending and she really wanted me to go and take my scope.

I got home from work exhausted a little after 6, and started packing the truck. I wasn't sure what all I would need so I brought a little of everything. I'm glad I brought my heavy sweatshirt and a long sleeve shirt. I packed my chair and table and I thought to bring a milk crate I had pilfered some a grocery store some 25 years earlier.

By 7:20 I was on the road and heading west toward the Pocket Area. During the short 20 minute trip I realized that this was my AstroEvent without my viewing buddy Randy Muller. I was flying solo.

When I arrived at the park I found 5 other scopes already set up. I was met by Susan Strosahl who explained the rules. I setup my scope, a home built (not by me) 10" Dob near the others. I played with my new finder scope, an Orion 9x60. It's pretty heavy but I found that removing the two extra weights from the top of the OTA gave me pretty good balance with both the finder and Telrad installed.

The girls started arriving in groups of about 10 or so. The sky was still fairly bright and the only thing I could see naked eye was Venus so I dialed it in and let the girls take turns at the eyepiece. The responses varied from "That's cool!" to an unenthusiastic "OK". I'm glad I thought to bring the milk crate. The shorter girls would not have been able to reach the eyepiece.

In the second group one of the girls asked if there was something else they could see. I said that Mars would be visible shortly and pointed in the general direction of where it would be. She pointed and asked if that was Mars. I looked and sure enough I could just barely see it in the sky. There were still no stars visible. I dialed in Mars and showed the girls.

After another 20 minutes or so I decided to try for something more interesting. I had found M3 in my backyard the previous Wednesday and tried to find it again. I used the Telrad to get the general area and then used the Orion finder dial it in. In the finder M3 looked like a fuzzy star. The next batch of girls to come by seemed very impressed and I kept with M3 for the rest of the evening.

In total there were about 120 girls at the event. I had a great time answering questions.

After most of the girls had left my daughter, Jessie stayed with me and helped with the scope. She wanted to see something else so I found M65 and M66 in Leo.

About 11:00 we started packing up. I had a blast! I also got to spend some quality time with my daughter.