The Lone Star(fire)

by Jane Houston Jones

Last month an AP180EDT was offered for sale in Austin, Texas. Last week Mojo and I loaded our green Dodge Caravan with star party clothes, hand warmers, a star chart book box, and a companion telescope -- our 14.5 inch Litebox travelscope -- to set up next to our new one at star parties on the road from Austin to home. We left enough room in the van for the Lone Star(fire).

In the map compartment of the van were roadside geology books for California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas and some state maps, too. On the dashboard sat the nifty Delorme Earthmate GPS receiver and between our bucket seats, rode our HP Pavilion laptop loaded with the mapping software that came with the receiver. We had the best of low tech and the best of high tech, complete with a computer generated female voice telling us where to go!

We headed south to Interstate 10 then crossed the great American southwest by way of Blythe, California, stopping overnight in Tucson, Arizona, lunching in Mesilla, near Las Cruces New Mexico and stopping the next night in Sonora, Texas. We arrived in Austin Texas on Tuesday aftrernoon, 65 hours and 1800 miles after we left home Saturday night.

We loaded the new telescope, mount, piers, and accessories in the van and traded it all for a cashier's check. A couple hours later we checked into our hotel in San Antonio, right next to the Alamo, and dined on the San Antonio river.

The next day, Wednesday, March 13, we arrived at the highest town in Texas, Ft. Davis elevation 4800 in the late afternoon. After checking into our motel room, we headed up the road to McDonald Observatory, where a public star party was about to begin.

McDonald Observatory scheduled many special events for this Spring Break week. The previous night, over 1,100 people attended the public star party, set up next to the old visitor center, which is being turned into the Moody Center for Amateur Astronomy.

Soon, concrete piers will dot the observing area near a huge flat parking lot, with lots of power outlets. There are two enclosed telescopes, a 24 inch reflector in a roll-off roof, a 16 inch SCT in a dome, which does double duty --day solar h-alpha observing and night time dark sky observing 7 days a week for the visitors.

This was our first set up of our new 7 inch Starfire, dubbed "The Rod" in honor of its previous owner, Rod Norden. We knew we'd have hundreds at the eyepiece when the star party began an hour later. Surprisingly (for us) setup was a snap. We used the 48 inch pier on that first night, and about 600 people got a Starfire view of Saturn, in mag 7 skies at 6,200 feet elevation. Those of you who have looked through Rich Neushaefer's 7 inch know we were almost speechless after that first look at Saturn.

The next night, Thursday March 14, there was no public star party planned, so we had that whole area to ourselves. Clouds came in at about 1130 p.m., as we were halfway through our Messier Marathon. Still we had alot of fun aiming the Lone Starfire on its higher 54 inch pier and shooting 49 Messiers between 8:30 p.m.and 11:30 p.m., no problem at all with any in the first order shown in Don Machholz's Messier Marathon Guide. It took us a while longer using the strapped-on Telrad we hastily bought at Austin Astronomy on the way out of town, since we discovered we didn't have a finder for the Starfire. We're used to starhopping with big easy-to-move dobs, so it was interesting to have to move the telescope from one side of the pier to the other, and other refractor weenie tasks I haven't had to perform before.

Friday night, March 15 was another public night and we had so much fun on Wednesday night that we booked an additional nights lodging in Fort Davis for Friday night. Another public star party night, another 600 people got to look through both The Rod, and our 14.5 inch Litebox reflector. We had 30 in line for hours behind the big gleaming Starfire, maybe 20 in line for the low-tech Litebox. Saturn was the hands down favorite view of the crowd. Plenty of others aimed at naked-eye comet Ikeya/Zhang, and there were a dozen amateurs with various instruments aimed at various objects throughout the evening.

Saturday morning we awoke at 6:30 a.m., and hit the road for Tucson, driving over 500 miles and arriving in time to find a hotel, and to drive out to the semi-annual Arizona/Sonora Desert Museum Public Star party. There were between 25 and 30 telescopes set up, brought by members of the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association, the same people who organize the Grand Canyon Star Party in June each year. Telescopes ranged from one 20 inch Obsession, to a a homemade 18 inch reflector, on down the reflector line to 8 and 10 inch Orion Skyquests. Next to us was an AP130 aimed at Jupiter. About 400 people drove out to see the stars come out, the comet go down, and many objects in many telescopes.

Tonight is Sunday night, March 18. It's clear and cold in Tucson. We'll just observe at a friend's home observatory in the outskirts of Tucson tonight. We'll take out the Lone Starfire and do some target practice with it, and then head home for California!

Observing locations:

First light pix from TX and AZ : http://www.whiteoaks.com/mojo/TheRod/

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