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by Matt Tarlach
Late Sunday night Ken Sablinsky & I returned from the Oregon Star Party. There's a lot to tell, and I'm a little tired, so I'll break the report up into parts. Here I'll report on the event itself, next time I'll give some observing highlights. I'll also write up a little report on the equipment we brought from Orion to demo at the event (we went as Orion reps), which I'll send privately to whoever's interested - I don't want to commercialize this list. I took some pictures that are at Kodak right now - if any come out well I'll post 'em.
The OSP is held at a remote site in the high desert of Oregon, at 5000' elevation and about 2 hours east of Bend. The roads are paved to within about 4 miles, the last section being gravel in good shape. It took us about 10 hours from my home near Sacramento; we left Wednesday night and stayed in Weed, driving the last 6 hours on Thursday. It's a long haul, but pilgrims are rewarded with a real desert site, blessed by dry, dark, steady skies. The site is a gently sloped hilltop, perhaps 1x0.5 miles in size, with excellent horizons. The air drainage is excellent, which contributes to the dryness and sky transparency. There are two gravel roads crossing the hilltop, and folks park and set up their campsites and scopes either right along the roads, or well off out in the fields of sagebrush. It's much more open and speread out than the Riverside event.
This year despite the late date (the OSP has previously been held in August) about 600 people turned out, most from Oregon and Washington but also many from California, Idaho, British Columbia, and as far away as Des Moines, Iowa. The amenities provided for the crowd included a mobile kitchen (meals could be purchased either in advance or on site; many brought their own) an espresso van that stayed open 'till 2am, and a mobile shower truck. This last proved so popular that they ran out of water Saturday morning! The organizers promised to have enough water for everybody to shower next year.
Several vendors set up displays near the registration tent, among them the Sunseris of Earth & Sky, the Darksite Dome Co., and the Sunriver Nature Center of Oregon. Ken & I were there to demo Orion equipment, and not sell, so we set up on one of the main observing fields rather than among the vendors. I walked through to see what the other vendors had to offer, but all I bought over the weekend came at the swap meet held on Saturday: I picked up a complete set of Astro-Cards, complete with backlighting LED illuminator, a big Bogen tripod I'll use with my binos, and an old but nicely made 9mm Ramsden that should be interesting to test against some of the more complicated new-fangled eyepieces. The swap meet was small compared to the one at Riverside, but still offered many interesting items from homemade LED "warning lights" for $1 each to a 4" f15 Unitron Refractor on a massive Cave mount.
The tent in which the swap meet was held also hosted several informative talks over the weekend. I went to one on telescope making given by Steve and Bruce Swayze, and a keynote speech by Stephen O'Meara. The latter talk was entertaining and even inspiring, as O'Meara related how, time and again, his planetary observations of the '60's and '70's had been rejected as "impossible," only to be borne out by later space probe photos. He drove home the importance of trusting your eye, and sketching what you see confidently, rather than making an effort to see the details that the guidebooks say should be there.
Because of my responsibilities to stay near the Orion display and answer questions, I wasn't able to attend all the talks I would have liked. Among those I missed were Richard Berry's keynote on Friday, and several talks on CCD and visual observing techniques. I was able to catch part of the Telescope Walkaround, during which Mel Bartels (the ATM list administartor and walking repository of knowledge on home telescope making) led a group around the field checking out the most impressive homemade scopes. Among the stops we made: a beautiful lightweight 16" dob, in blonde baltic birch and sporting a mirror made from porthole glass, a very nice all-aluminum 12.5" binocular by Bruce Sayre of the Sacramento Valley club, and a leather reclining chair that had been converted to a comfortable platform for 11x80 binos.
Overall the OSP is great event. I can only think of two negatives to report: dust and distance. The terrain at the observing site is composed of broken rock and fine orange dust. If not for a scattering of sagebrush (and the pines that line the perimeter), it might be mistaken for a Martian landscape out of a Pathfinder photo. The rocks are plentiful and sharp enough to make driving tent pegs difficult, sleeping on the ground uncomfortable, and walking around the observing field in the dark a minor adventure. Bring a cot (or camper) and wear sturdy shoes or boots. And the dust is, well, everywhere. I spent most of Monday cleaning up my gear and doing laundry. Next time I go, I will bring enough rolls of astroturf to carpet my entire observing area, and set up farther from the roads, where cars kick up a large amount of dust. The 10 hour drive (perhaps as long as 12 from the southern Bay Area) was tiring.
Next time I'll leave home earlier on Wednesday and stay overnight in Bend, leaving only a 2 hour drive to the site on Thursday.
I keep talking about the next time because I'll certainly be going back. I had a great time, and what surprised me was the actual observing was only a small part of the experience. I enjoyed the lectures, the events, and the opportunity to see many interesting scopes, both commercial and home made - but most of all the cameraderie shared by 600 people who had travelled hundreds of miles into the wilderness to enjoy the night sky at its finest. The rocks and dust are minor inconveniences that I will manage better next time. I'm not sure if I will be able to make OSP 2000, which is scheduled for next Labor Day, but I hope to become a fixture at future events...and I hope some of you will join me.