CalStar 08. Four great nights, one short OR.

Greg LaFlamme

For the second year in a row I attended the event early, arriving on Wednesday. Temps over the four days were 93/97 and around 50 or so at night. I set up near Albert, Joe-Bob, George Feliz, Scott Baker, Milt, David Kingsley, General George and Joining us later were Mark Johnston, Greg Claytor and family and Jamie Dillon for cripes-sakes! Nice group and knowledge in every direction. Heck, I couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting somebody I like (that's just an old expression, I would never touch a dead cat, much less wield it) To keep it short, I'll just say that the event was fantastic. From Dan's sausage to the company kept and the dark skys, the entire event was great. SQM readings were in the 21.41 to 21.50 range meaning that its dark enough to see just about anything you'd want to see. Saturday night was by far the best though unsteady early on, SQM was 21.56 by my meter. I logged 137 objects, and worked from Alvin Huey's very well made Arp book. I was surprised at the detail that could be detected through my 12.5" reflector but having charts, images and sketches was convenient and helpful.

Here is a short list of highlights not in any particular order:

----------------------------------------------------------------------

1- Hanging out with Dan and the gang over at his mobile kitchen, and playing guitar with Mark Johnston.

1- Getting to speak with "Mr. planetary" Kent Wallace, learn some history and hear from a pro first hand. He's been using the same OIII filter since the early 90's. Nuff said.

1- Touring the sky with Greg Claytor and his son Joey.

1- Seeing/using Albert's new 16" ultralight. Marvelous.

1- Working the sky closely with George, Scott and the rest of the gang.

1- Anything Joe-Bob sed.

1- Attending the meeting for GSSP 09, hearing the stats and what improvements should be made for next year. SO much work goes into the planning and from what I could gather, its handled in the most professional way by an irreplaceable group of great people. Bravo!

1- Getting to see and use the very first scope I ever made, now owned by super-guy Paul Sterngold. (I never needed a mallet or pipe cutter to assemble it at a star party before but hey, he got it working great;-)

1- The view of my second favorite galaxy NGC 7479 through Mark Wagner's 18". He had just the right combination of magnification, light collection and transparency to display it better than I've seen it yet and I've looked at that one allot.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to Jamie Dillon for gently humbling this noobish.

Morphological catalog of galaxies
Morphological catalog of galaxies
Morphological catalog of galaxies
Morphological catalog of galaxies

Got it :)

I'll put a bunch of pictures up on the TAC Flickr, I sez check it out.

GML