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Chiefland Astronomy Village - November, 2003
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Roland Culberson
Chiefland was CHILLY!
On our arrival Tuesday night about 12:30AM, it was quite cool at the site.
Andrew and I hit the field in search of some other life forms and found
John Clifton standing in the middle of one of the rows near the back. He
showed us where we were to be set up the following morning. It was cloudy
and very windy at that point, so Andrew and I went back to the truck and
went to bed. I left the windows partially open, as it was cool, but not
yet cold. About 3:00AM, I noticed there was a tinkling of noise on the
roof of the truck. I rolled up the windows just in time for a torrential
downpour. It rained through the rest of the night, and was only mildly
drizzling at first light.
At that point we went into the field to our appointed spot. I noticed
that John's tent had become more of a wading pool. There was a small
lake further down the aisle, giving the "Swamp", Dave Gracie's normal
area, a whole new meaning. I put the trailer in and unhooked just in
time for MORE RAIN. Yet another major watershed fell for several hours,
again with wind. Well, Wednesday did calm down, and we did get to do
some observing that night, but the night to remember (at least for me)
was Thursday.
I have long dreamed of going to Alaska to see the Aurora. Thursday night,
I got to see it WITHOUT LEAVING FLORIDA! Due to the recent Solar winds
from the recent massive coronal mass ejections, we were able to clearly
see the Aurora as it danced across the northward sky. I know the John
Clifton got some shots of it, however, I was shown some photos taken
that night on Saturday morning that were absolutely incredible. The
photographer, Mike Cressy, had also caught a slow-rolling burner
crossing through the red glow. The photos will be on the web within a
few days and I'll find the site and post an address.
Scopes were varied and some were VERY cool. Jim Mayes' Port-O-Dobby was
a hit, and many photos were taken of it. One that caught my eye (being
a "Dob" kind of guy) was the one shown here, a little Dob with optics
as are used in a "Astro-Scan."
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The fellow's name is Remi Trujillo, and he said he built this prior
to building his larger scope that was sitting there next to it. I
looked at an antenna some distance away through this, it was quite
good. I never did get back over there at night though. |
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Another interesting item was this set-up that just looked like it
was pretty darn serious, but I did not get the name of the fellow
using it, I believe he has with the AstroPro Products group
(Paul Atkinson). |
There were a lot of other interesting items as well. John O'Neill
had a new resident on his Millennium mount, a large Takahashi
Cassegrain. He was set up behind Jim Kimball and they had some
conversations regarding polar alignment of SCT's on wedges. John
DeVepo was there with his 24" GOTO StarMaster. Vic Menard gave
another informative seminar on the art of Fast Newtonian
Collimation. Author Rod Mollise (Choosing and Using a
Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope) and his accomplice in observing,
Pat Rochford came down from Louisiana. They are two really nice
people, both with a wealth of information, and ALWAYS ready to
talk.
The folks from Camera Concepts came down from New York as a vendor,
and Chuck Pisa from Wolf Camera was present and more than happy to
help you find your wallet for all those neat toys you just can't live
without. (Yep, he got me…)
All in all, we had a great time. Our group was John Clifton, Jim
Kimball, George DeBarros, Dan Wickles, Jim Mayes (and his friend
Sue joined us Saturday night for the clouds!), Myself and Andrew.
We were joined by our northern transplant resident, now living in
Oveido, Ken Schmidt, and by old time members Fred and Dee
Blockland.
George De Barros
We arrived Monday November 17, only (to our surprise) to find the
campgrounds almost all full. After settling down from a long 5 hour
drive, we actually got to observe quite late that night, even though
we were all very tired. The weather that first night was clear, but
seeing was not as good.
Tuesday night, was quite windy with mostly cloudy skies, so we
entertained ourselves with a DVD movie (one of the Star Wars movie),
and went to bed early. Little did I know that around 3 am, John
Clifton lost his tent due to a heavy rainstorm and wind gusts probably
over 40mph. Mr. Clifton mentioned that he tried holding the tent from
the inside for over a half an hour, but Mother Nature won the battle.
(His story reminds me of the Wizard of Oz and Dorothy being blown away).
Of course, I slept through the whole episode. Next morning, I tried
to call the Red Cross, to find shelter for the homeless, but they
did not believe me.
Wednesday through Friday, we had fantastic skies with the best
observing I ever had. A magnificent Aurora Borealis was seen on
the northerly sky and captured in film from our professional
photographers John Clifton and Jim Kimbal. I also had the opportunity
to try my new digital camera on Saturn, which I hope to have in the
web site soon.
Saturday, started out quite nice, but it clouded up suddenly,
so we all packed and got ready for the long trip back home on
Sunday morning. The weather throughout the week was very cold
and wet. Some nights were so wet, that only Dobs seemed to work.
We all had a great time together, but after a week of roughing,
it was nice to have a good hot shower. I'm sure I'll be the first
one to go back again next year.
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Me with my 10" Starmaster. |
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Jim Mayes with his scope. |
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Dan Wickels with the club's 15" Juno. |
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Roland Culberson with one of his many scopes. |
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Me with my 8" LX200GPS. |
John W. Clifton
We arrived at Chiefland, as a group, on Monday, November 17, 2003. The
sites along the fence were taken, and the field was already three-quarters
full. We found a couple of sites, one across the road from the other, and
we set up camp. I then set up my12-inch LX200GPS, and prepared for a full
night of observing. In my opinion the sky was as dark or smidgen darker
than in Venus, FL. I connected my Nikon Coolpix 995 to the 40mm eyepiece
in the diagonal. I shot images of M2, The Blue Snowball, the Dumbbell
Nebula, and the Andromeda Galaxy. I spent most of the first night looking
through the other scopes on the field.
Tuesday night we heard a storm was coming, and that we would be clouded
out, so we decided to watch “Attack of the Clones” on DVD. Prior to the
storm I put all of my scope equipment and electronics in my truck… just
in case. I put my portable table in the tent to keep it from blowing over
and coming apart. After watching the movie on George Debarros’ Laptop, we
all went to bed. I was asleep for about an hour when I felt the wind
blowing, and I said to myself, “Well, the storm is here”. The wind and a
little rain lasted for about 20 minutes. When the winds died down, I
thought, “Was that it?” About 30 minutes later it began to rain again.
I checked around the tent and it was not leaking. I then closed my eyes
and settled in for a night’s sleep.
At about 3:00 AM the rain began to fall harder, and the winds picked up
again, and this time the winds grew stronger and stronger. I began to move
items to the center of the tent as the wind was blowing on the sides of
the tent, and I didn’t want the tent to start leaking because it had
touched something on the inside. Eventually the winds grew to be so
strong that I could not keep the tent walls from hitting me or the other
items in the tent including my table. I thought the tent would start
leaking if I didn’t do something, so I decided to hold onto the only
part of the tent frame that I could reach from the inside. Through the
tent’s ceiling I grabbed the 4 poles that made up the tent and rain fly
frames. As the wind grew stronger, my grip on the poles grew to match.
I was standing up in the tent for about a half-hour with the winds
tossing the tent around with me holding onto it. The next thing I knew
I heard a snap, and the tent wall on the windward side knocked down the
table along with me. I released the poles, and worked my way out of the
now collapsed tent. The instant I set foot outside, the wind died down,
and it stopped raining. I looked around figuring everyone was in the
same situation. However, the only other person to lose part of their
camp was the fellow next to me, but he only lost his canopy. I was the
only person to lose a tent.
I began to secure what items remained inside the tent. Dan Wickles came
out to assist me. I was told that the worst was yet to come, so I took
down my LX200, and I placed several ice chests on top of the collapsed
tent to hopefully keep my camp gear, still inside the tent, dry. I
finished securing the camp, and then went inside the cab of my truck to
try to get some sleep.
When the sun came up I went outside to see what was salvageable. I
discovered that the tent had filled up with rainwater, and that I had
set up the tent in a rut created by tire tracks. When dry you could not
see the rut, but after the rain, you could see the entire rut through
the field up to the gate of one of the residents, as it was full of
water. The tent was not salvageable as one pole snapped, and four of
the tent’s base loops pulled out of the floor. The stakes did not come
out, and the loops were still in the stakes. My sleeping bag was wet,
but not too bad as it was sitting up on a mat. Luckily, my suitcase
remained dry, so I did at least have clean clothes. My binoculars did
get wet but they dried out fine. The sleeping bag dried out before the
end of the day. The only item I actually lost in the storm was the
tent.
Now I needed to decide if I was going to stay for the remainder of the
week or leave. My Father raised me with two things I always had to keep
in mind. The first was never give up. The second was always to be able
to recognize a straight line (Dad likes to tell jokes). Therefore, I was
not giving up.
I reworked my camp so I could use the back of my Ford Excursion for both
equipment storage and for my bunk. I had to load up the driver and
passenger seats with my gear. Before nightfall, I was set up once again
for observing and photography.
The following images were taken after the storm:
| Andromeda Galaxy (M31) |
Ring Nebula (M57) |
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| North American Nebula |
Orion |
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The images above are cropped from the original image. The M57 image was
shot through my LX200 using a Nikon Coolpix 995 connected to a 40mm
Plossl using a Scopetronix Digi-T. The remaining images were shot using
a Nikon “F” and Kodak Elite Chrome film. The camera was mounted on top
of my equatorial mount. The exposures were 45 minutes long.
I would not have captured these images if I went home after the storm.
While I was shooting these images, I had no idea a larger storm was
approaching Earth. Matter from a Coronal Mass Ejection was heading
directly for Earth. Early Thursday evening, an announcement was made
that we might be able to see an aurora. “Wow, an aurora in Florida” was
what everyone was saying. All we had to do is look north. I had my
equatorial mounted scope set up, but I was not taking pictures. We
were all looking north, when you could begin to see very faint red rays
fanning out across the sky. Jim Kimball said to me “John, you should be
photographing this”. So I picked up my digital camera and placed it on a
tripod. I pointed the camera north and set the lens as wide angle as
possible. I exposed the image for a 20 seconds, and I could not believe
what I saw when the image appeared on my screen. That image is
below.
Upon seeing this image, I shot another, and then went over to the film
camera sitting on my telescope. I pointed the camera towards the aurora,
and opened the shutter. I only had the chance to shoot a few film images,
but I am satisfied with the results. The film images are
below.
The sky was full of small aircraft, and getting an image without aircraft
lights was near impossible. There is at least one set of aircraft lights
in each aurora image. I think I may have spent a half hour walking around
with the digital camera taking images of the aurora; all while the film
camera was taking long exposures. I never thought I would ever get to see
the northern lights unless I went to Alaska, but who would have figured we
would have seen an aurora in Florida during our visit to Chiefland, and be
able to capture it on film. I sure am glad that I listened to my father all
those years ago and did not go home after the storm. One part I did not
catch on film or with the digital was the meteor that crossed through the
aurora. Although it was not a Leonid, it was the brightest meteor of the
week. It may have been a piece of space junk. What a great night!
The entire event was a good experience, including the rainstorm. We all
had a great time. On Sunday, we packed up and headed home together. It
was nice to get home to my wife, Maria.
I am now looking forward to our star party coming soon!
Jim Kimball
It was fun!
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