by Albert Highe
For me, this has been a great year for star parties. CalStar was my sixth and is high on my list for next year.
First of all, I want to add my thanks to Mark Wagner, Jim Bartolini, SJAA, and anyone else who instigated, coordinated, and/or sponsored this event. I enjoyed the dark skies, helpful park staff, large shade trees, and the friendly and knowledgeable participants.
San Antonio Park is almost ideal for a large star party. The only quality it lacks is altitude. However, it has the best landscape of any star party I've attended this year. The observing field is large, virtually flat and rock-free, and has great horizons from most locations. Surrounding the main observing field are numerous campsites with large shade trees, running water, and picnic tables. Portable toilets make up in quantity what they lack in quality. Even with the 80+ scopes, the main field was not full, although a tight knot of observers developed in the center. We occupied a small fraction of the campground we were in. There are numerous other open fields nearby and many other campsites. This location could easily hold a star party rivaling the largest in the country. Also, showers, swimming and boating in the lake, and a small store are a short drive away.
The park staff was the friendliest and most accommodating I have ever experienced. I think they would be great to work with in preparing for the next event. Ranger Nicki stopped by looking for someone to give her some input. After we talked about what we anticipated, she volunteered to water down the roads to minimize dust and to bring in more picnic tables. When I asked for more toilets to be placed around the observing field so we wouldn' t have to walk so far across the field in the dark, she immediately agreed. She repeatedly came by to make sure that everything had been done and to ask if the staff could be of any more help.
Since it was my birthday on Thursday, I decided to treat myself to an extra night of observing. As already pointed out, about 8-10 people arrived early to brave the coldest night on Thursday. Seeing was soft this night, but the dark skies were great for hunting down faint fuzzies. I decided to pace myself, turning in early at about 1:30 A.M. Actually, that meant five hours of observing since it gets dark sooner this time of year. During that time, in addition to fending off the feral pigs and observing some bright favorites, I did add 24 new objects to my list. Most of these were odds and ends that I somehow overlooked in earlier sessions. The highlight was seeing and trying to identify a collection of faint galaxies in the neighborhood of NGC1270 and NGC1275 in Perseus. These galaxies are at magnitude 13.1 and 11.9, respectively. They were quite easy to see in my 12.5" f/5. There are about 20 galaxies of magnitude 12-14 within about a 1 degree square of sky. My Sky Atlas 2000 doesn't show these faint objects, so I had a lot of fun "discovering" galaxies, sketching their relative positions, and making notes about their appearance. This is an area I plan to explore a great deal more.
As already mentioned, the temperature increased and seeing improved each night. Consequently, I stayed up until 2 A.M. on Friday and 3:30 A.M. on Saturday. I wasn't bothered by the feral pigs either of these two nights since I had moved across the observing field. However, they still seemed to like my campsite, apparently returning each night to devour the acorns that had fallen during the day. In addition to sharing views with other participants, I logged 42 new objects on Friday and 58 on Saturday. Friday, I concentrated most of my observing on objects low in the South, taking advantage of the latitude and dark, low horizon in that direction. I logged about 10 galaxies in Piscis Austrinus. I particularly enjoyed seeing a group of four 11th magnitude galaxies in one high-power field. NGC 7172, 7173, 7174, and 7176 are within about 10 arc minutes of each other. In fact, I had to use magnification of about 175X to "split" the 7174/7176 interacting pair of galaxies that are less than one arc minute apart. Very satisfying. I also was amazed to see the Helix nebula bold and bright in my finder scope!
This year I have been focused on finding everything plotted in Sky Atlas 2000 with my 12.5" dob. On Saturday, I planned to find and observe everything on page 17. Although it took most of the night, I succeeded. However, along the way, I "discovered" a lot of faint galaxies that Sky Atlas 2000 does not plot. The highlights on Saturday included another rich galaxy field in Pegasus and a nice close pair of galaxies in Pisces. Within about a half a degree of the magnitude 11 galaxies NGC 7619 and 7626, I "discovered" 12th to 14th magnitude galaxies NGC 7611, 7617, 7631, 7623, and 7612. In Pisces, I particularly enjoyed NGC 7541 and 7537. The planes of each of these galaxies is quite inclined, making them appear almost edge on. NGC 7537, at magnitude 13.2 is almost a faint copy of 7541 at magnitude 11.7. The replication isn't exact, however. I could see that the long axis of one is rotated slightly vs. the other.
Before turning in for the night, I wandered around the observing field. At least half of the observers were already gone. However, I got a very nice view of Jupiter in Rich's 7" AP refractor and Michelle indulged me by letting me look at Orion's Nebula with her 18".
Thanks also to everyone who stopped by to share a view through my scope or shared their views with me. I look forward to seeing you all again at other gatherings and at CalStar next year.