Houge star party report

by Rich Neuschaefer


Last night (Fri., Sept. 8,'00) I attended the San Jose Astronomical Association's twice monthly Friday In Town Star Party for the general public. There were at least 20 telescopes and maybe 75 visitors. This star party is at Houge Park, virtually in the middle of the Santa Clara Valley (Silicone Valley). It isn't a dark site, but gives the public quick and easy access to the wonders of the night sky.

The sky was free of clouds but there was some haze and a bright Moon. The seeing was about a 6 out of 10 most of the night. Shortly after Moon past the meridian the seeing in that part of the sky was about 7.5 of 10 for 45 minutes.

The telescopes at the star party ranged from 80mm achro- mats to 12.5 inch Newtonians. I was using my AP 155EDF (155mm f/7 APO refractor) on an AP 900 mount with a 48" AP pier. I keep a 4 foot ladder at hand if parents want to let their children view through the telescope. The parents have to be responsible for their kids on the ladder.

I tried several eyepiece combinations. I like to use a relative long eye relief eyepiece for public star parties. I tend to use good eyepieces because I like a good view and I want others to see how well an amateur telescope can perform. I usually don't try to push the magnification too much unless the seeing is very good and people really want a high power view. I find newbies viewing the night sky prefer to see objects with less magnification so the object is more "in context". I used a 21mm Pentax SMC-XL plus a barlow. I switched barlows several times, sometimes a TV 2x and TV 2.5x Powermate. When the seeing was better I used Takahashi 7.5mm and 5mm LEs. Sometimes barlowing the these LEs. When the seeing was very good and there were fewer visitors, I used 16mm Zeiss Abbe Ortho and 2x TV barlow. I also used a 6mm Zeiss Abbe Ortho with and without the 2x barlow.

I don't think I'll be using the short eye relief Zeiss eyepieces again at a public star party. I found that even with relatively experienced observers, they get so close to the eyepiece their eye lashes brush oil on the lens. Too bad they aren't content to keep back a little and not touch the eyepiece. I wouldn't mind so much, but the Zeiss Abbe Orthos are no longer being manufactured. One plug for Tele Vue, they are one of the few companies (maybe the only one) that will replace lenses in their eyepieces. They do it quickly and for a modest charge.

After looking at the Moon for a couple of hours, I tried some bright deep sky objects (DSOs). The DSOs didn't stand out very well due to the bright 10 day old Moon and the city lights but I still found them interesting. I looked at M22, M31, M32, M13, the Double Cluster and some interesting stars of contrasting colors. Later I aimed the scope back at the Moon. The crater Copernicus showed very nice steps in the rim. The floor showed the central peaks and "litter". The small line of craters between Copernicus and Eratosthenes could be seen even though they were well away from the terminator. You could also see the southern part of Hadley's Rill. It was fun looking all along the terminator.

The star party ends a little before Midnight, so we didn't view Saturn and Jupiter. If we get clear skies this Fall, the SJAA Houge Park In Town Star Parties should be a lot of fun, a "target rich environment".