by Albert Highe
I decided to go to the Oregon Star Party this year. It was the end of last week (Thursday) through Labor Day weekend. It has the reputation of having great skies. It takes place at an elevation of 5000' in Central Oregon (not much light pollution within hundreds of miles). Last year was supposedly fantastic. Its popularity has been growing. They had over 700 people pre-registered this year.
Anyway, the long-range forecast was not good, but I decided to go anyway. I could at least meet a few fellow ATMers, take in a few talks, and see some other scopes. I arrived Thursday morning to partly cloudy skies. A few miles away was a large, threatening forest fire whose smoke interfered with the otherwise clear seeing conditions the previous night. The skies got progressively worse all day, but improved slightly at dusk. The big 40" scope had already packed up and left. I managed to get in about an hour of mediocre observing in between the clouds. However, by 10:00PM the clouds knitted together, blocking out what few stars had been visible. I think everyone, including me, was in bed by 11:00PM. It was cold and windy. I was prepared for the cold and got an excellent night's sleep in my tent.
The sky on Friday morning was dark gray horizon to horizon and the wind out of the North was very cold. Everyone was bundled in their warmest clothes and coats. Still, the cold sucked the heat out of us as we stood around, periodically looking up at the brief streaks of blue, hoping it would clear. A fairly powerful dust devil whipped up someone's canopy about 50 feet into the air. When it came down, it injured a woman who had to be flown out by helicopter.
The forecast was 50% chance of rain. I decided I didn't want to get caught in a cold rain in my tent during the middle of the night. So I packed everything up except my telescope, expecting to head out during the late afternoon. I wanted to stay for a few talks. Also, I had been asked to show and discuss my telescope design during an event that is known as the "walkabout." Well, the walkabout was supposed to start at 4:00PM and the rain started at 3:30PM while many of us were in the big tent listening to Tom Clark of Tectron Telescopes. After about 15 minutes of hearing the rain come down steadily, I left the talk to pack up my soggy telescope. I was out of there by 4:15, wet and cold. Plenty of others were right behind me and still others had been trickling out of camp all day. Needless to say, the walkabout was canceled.
Later, I learned that those who stayed enjoyed a steady, hard cold rain all night. Saturday morning was relatively clear. But as the day progressed, the cold rain returned, eventually turning into pea-sized hail. Most everyone bailed on Saturday.
It was about 1700 miles round trip and approximately $200 in gas and hotel bills along the way. Not a productive trip.