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Nine Mile Grade Campground
March 30 - April 2, 2000
Roland Culberson
This was an awfully fun way to spend the weekend (in spite of a few
drops..er,buckets of rain of Friday. I got to see quite a few things
for the first time, and revisited many others to find that they were
much more splendid than I had seen from some of the other sites
(like....home). My goal for the weekend was Omega Centauri, and it
was fulfilled. Very "full field !" What a magnificent cluster this
is. I could not have dreamed that it was so beautiful. I was also
impressed with the "colliding" galaxies in Centaurus too, and they
were quite bright!
My thanks to those who tried, Ken and Kye, (though without success) to
keep me from going to sleep both nights earlier than I wanted to, but
the medicine won that battle. I am looking forward to doing something
like this again. It was also very nice to just hang out with some of
the rest of our like minded group. Interesting conversations, a few
good jokes, lots of stories of other star parties and so on.
And the coffee. Can't forget the coffee. It was GOOOOD ! Even the "Fire
Brewed" stuff Joe and Mandy had before the club pot got started was
first rate. They also won the funniest pet contest with the lowrider
"labra-basset-ador" retriever, Hoss. What a cool dog ! (and very well
behaved too) Lets do this again ...... SOON!
Kye Ewing
Any clear, dark night out with my telescope is a good one, but our outing
last weekend was an exceptionally enjoyable experience. The two dark,
mostly clear nights went very well and best of all the people who
attended were fantastic. I'm sure that everyone made new friends and had
a great time with old ones as well.
Friday night started out with a downpour as a weak cold front moved
across central Florida. By 9pm we were finding things to enjoy as the
clouds broke up. Noticing that the club's Juno 15 was standing ready
to go but unused, I pulled the cover off and started enjoying some
really wonderful views. By 11pm it was pretty clear, although the sky
transparency was not great. No wonder - everything was SOAKED!
Dew guns worked hard that night! But the sky was pretty steady - especially
for having had a front just pass through - and the dark lanes of the
Sombrero Galaxy and NGC4565 were razor sharp in the Juno with my newly
purchased Teleview 12mm eyepiece. On the other hand objects like the Owl
Nebula looked pretty mushy and the dark lane of the Black-eye Galaxy was
not real clear. I presumed that conditions were just changing rapidly.
When I checked on the Whirlpool Galaxy a little later it was coming
through great, with twisting spiral arms and a nice clear "bridge".
Around 1am Omega Centauri peeked through the dip in the tree line and
all scopes pointed south. Centaurus A was very faint. Things were
mushing out again! By 2:30 fog had definitely rolled in and I packed
it in and got some sleep.
Saturday afternoon seemed like as good a time as any for a solar
"shoot-out" with Joe Daukantis bringing his newly purchased 3.5"
Questar. Although it is about the same age as mine (which I have
had since it was new in 1977) his has just been completely renovated,
with new mirror and glass coatings. Mine has gone back for minor
tune-ups a few times, but still has the original coatings, which are
beginning to show their age. Between this and Joe's full aperture solar
filter, compared to my partial aperture filter, more detail was evident
in Joe's scope. Another fella showed up Saturday with a 7" Questar! (And
I can't remember his name now either!!) I didn't get down to have a look
through it quick enough and he left before I could! I sure was hoping to
see how it handled! Maybe next time.
Saturday evening started out with completely clear skies and a brisk
breeze. Transparency was not too great at first, with the sky only
darkening down to a medium gray. As the night went on and more dew
dropped out of the air the background got blacker. Temperatures went
as low as 63 degrees and the wind pretty much stopped, with seeing
getting quite good. Thanks to Ken Schmidt checking the satellite
schedules online before coming out, we watched the Hubble Space
Telescope go directly overhead just after sunset. After checking out
few easy targets like the Eskimo Nebula and the Ghost of Jupiter I
went to work on some fainter galaxies in Ursa Major. It was in the
northwest sky by then, which seemed to be the darkest part of the
sky. I wasn't getting the really, really faint things in that I have
been able to sight at this location other times. I did get galaxies
down to 11.4 magnitude (NGC 3729) and some others that technically
register higher brightnesses, but are quite extended, so they are
pretty faint to see.
While all this astronomy was going on my husband, Al, was "DX'ing"
in his portable short-wave receiver, listening to news from Austria
(an avalanche occurred there that day!) and from Radio Australia came
news of another iceberg breaking off from Antarctica, now drifting in
the Pacific Ocean. This one is the size of Grand Bahama Island! And,
of course, we listened to Radio Canada's "Vinyl Cafe", which we enjoy
every Saturday night at 10pm EDT.
Astronomy aside, this was one of those events where everyone had a
really great time. About 40 attended, and we went through about 140
cups of coffee. Astronomy NOT aside, I'm sure everyone learned how
to find some new things that they were not familiar with before and
I suspect some put in their first all-nighter (or nearly so!). It's
just too bad that Florida's long summer is about to come down on us.
I can't wait to do this again, and I'm afraid it will just be too hot
and buggy to try it until fall. Looking forward to "seeing" you all
again in the dark!
Fred Lehman
Hi gang. What a great outing! In spite of a small amount of rain Friday
night, it sure was clear after midnight. The grass, however, was very,
very wet. I went barefoot all day Saturday, and my shoes were finally
dry by 6PM when it was time for them to get wet again.
Saturday night was almost indescribably clear. I'm sure that I haven't
seen the summer Milky Way so bright since I was a kid in Northern
Minnesota. By 2 AM, the sky was so dark that I could easily spot 15th
magnitude galaxies in Ursa Major. My LX200 has an indexing mode where
it will slew to the next nearest galaxy each time you hit the enter
key. Its internal library of objects goes down to the 16th magnitude,
and there was not a single object that I could not pick out. Sometimes,
there would be three or four galaxies at once in the field of view, and
I was using a very narrow field eyepiece (24 arc minutes). Slewing to
M51, I could clearly see the spiral arms in the prime galaxy and the
central bar in its companion. I have never before seen anything other
than a field of fuzz around a pair of fuzzy nuclei.
Nothing in the skies, however, compares with the friendly and helpful
people that attended the party. I was so pleased with everyone I met
that I signed up and joined the club. I am looking forward to
attending many future meetings and outings.
Thanks to all of you.
John & Marilyn Grage
Hi everyone.
The ASPB star party at the Highlands went good. Friday night we had a
good hour long storm but it cleared up and around 11.00 pm everyone was
gearing up to observe. The seeing was not the best but good enough with
the dark skies. I stayed up to about 4.00 am. We observed NGC 5139 Omega
Centauri I believe around 3:00 am just above the tree line. This was the
first time I had my new computer driven 10" fully operating away from home
and it was working really good.
Saturday was nice and a few more people were coming in as the day went
by. We drove over to Lightsys on the lake (Okeechobee.) and had catfish
for dinner around 4:00. When we got back to the field allot more people
had arrived. The sky had cleared up and it looked like it was going to
be a great night. Allen Como was setting up his scopes and Eric Larabell
from Vero Beach joined me. I had a crowd to entertain as my family and a
few friends came by for there first time to a star party. After a a nice
transit of the Hubble telescope from horizon to horizon and a transit of
an unknown satellite that would pulse on and off as it passed (we think
it was spinning ) followed by a little sky tour for everyone visiting,
me and Eric got down to some good observing and learning the tricks of
operating my new scope. Allen was hard at the Messiers with his charts
when we dropped by. Me and Eric lasted to about 3:00am. What a great
night! and a great weekend.
See everyone soon.
Nancy and Bill Huff
Just wanted to let you all know what a great time we had at 9-Mile.
Although we were there for just one day/night, we both agree we would
like to come back. The skies, in our opinion, are much better than any
we have seen in the State.
Although we had a lot of help from our LX200, we were quite surprised
that we were able to log 100 of the Messiers. The eight early sundown
ones were impossible to see and at 4:30 a.m. we said the heck with it
to waiting for the last two to peak above the horizon. From a couple
that rarely makes it to 2:00 a.m., we were quite proud of
ourselves.
Good luck on your future star parties, you've made a great start. Hope
to see you at our Orange Blossom Special sometime down the road.
Ken Schmidt
Thanks for the nice weekend and great viewing Saturday night.
Friday night was a mini tuneup and only logged 25 M's but didn't spend
time looking at the ghost of Jupiter and viewing thru other scopes.
Saturday night was a night for M's. I logged 86 but was up until 5:15am
and what a nice clear night.Missed many in the Virgo cluster because the
little 70 and 85mm scopes. Was able to log M52(Cassiopeia) at 5am after
it made the circle. No, I didn't see M31,32,33,74,77,or 110.But did log
M76.
Was sure tired and slept well Sunday night.
P.S.: was nice seeing the Hubble pass at 7:15 pm Saturday.
Charlie Fredrickson
I arrived with the club Juno-15 telescope on Friday evening, to find a
campground hunkered down due to heavy rains. After a brief let-up in the
rain, I set up the scope, but departed at about 9PM, when it looked like
the clouds would persist the entire evening. I arrived back on Saturday
afternoon, to find broken clouds, a brisk northeast wind, and lots of
folks arriving in anticipation of better weather. At least 40 people
attended, with around 20 telescopes set up in various locations around
the campground. ASPBer's there included Roland Culberson (18" dob), Bill
Bucklew (C14), Art Ahrens (6" refractor), Kye Ewing and her venerable 10"
Odyssey, Jeff Hillmann (6" Mak-Newt), John Wilson (13" Odyssey), Cal
Waters (12" LX200), Ken Schmidt (Pronto), Jim Mayes (8" dob), Randy Lisk
(12.5" homemade dob), Michael Piestly (8" SCT), James Daggett (4.5"
newtonian), John Helfrich (SCT), Joe Daukantas (Questar), and Joe Hoffmann
(8" SCT). There were a good number of out-of-town visitors as well. Along
the river, Joe H. and Mandy enjoyed the rope swing into the water, and
John H. and his son fished and used a motorboat to explore the
river.
As dusk approached, the clouds cleared completely, but the wind remained
brisk. As soon as stars came out, it was apparent we would not "get" the
first four or five items in the Messier marathon, which were in bright
twilight as they set. I originally had not planned to take part in the
marathon, but, due to a change in plans, I was off and running at dusk.
Jeff H. and I worked closely for the first half of the night. I started
with M34, and ended, in twilight, with M2 at 5:20AM (actually 6:20 EST;
we had a time change!).
Altogether, I bagged 93 of the target items, missing only the first 5 of
the evening, some of the Virgo cluster galaxies (I developed a case of
Galaxy burn-out!), M62 in Ophiuchus, M30 in Capricorn, and a few of the
Sagittarius items. I received significant help on M102 from Ken Schmidt,
and on M64 from Kye. The last three items, tiny globulars M72 and M75, as
well as M2, were done with Bill Bucklew's assistance on his C14. A good
number of people stopped by to check out some of the items in the Juno-15.
In addition to the Messier objects, we looked at the Double Cluster, the
Ghost of Jupiter, the Eskimo, and the crowning glory, OMEGA CENTAURI,
through a "notch" in the trees to the south. Biggest surprises were
globulars M53 and M55, which are really wonderful, although not often
observed. The skies remained basically cloud-free through most of the
evening.
WOW, what a night! Even though I was totally exhausted by dawn, I
couldn't sleep for long. By 8:30 I was packed and on my way home. I
hope others will share their experiences of the event as well.
Congratulations to Kye and all the others that planned and executed
this event for ASPB!
Art Ahrens & his 6" refractor on the massive Losmandy mount. |
Bill Bucklew and the C14 on German Equitorial Mount. |
The center of the campground area, with lots of scopes set up, ready for dark skies. The ASPB Juno-15
is in the foreground. |
Jeff Hillmann and his new 6" Maksutov-Newtonian scope. |
Joe and Kye comparing sunspots with their Questars. |
Joe Hoffman and Mandy at their tent along the river. |
Joe Daukantas with QUESTAR on huge Losmandy mount! Definitely overkill! |
John Wilson and his 13" Odyssey dobsonian, along with other folks. |
Randy Lisk, a founder of ASPB in the early 80's, with his homebuilt 12.5" dobsonian. |
A variety of ASPB folks at the MM star party, April 1, 2000. |
Jim Mayes
Main entrance to the campgrounds with registration sign.
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Entire central viewing field looking West.
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Northern overflow viewing field looking West.
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Central viewing field looking South-East.
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Central viewing field looking East.
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Roland Culberson assembling his 18" Starmaster.
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Roland Culberson, Cal Waters, and Joe Daukantas.
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Bill Bucklew setting up his 14" Celestron with Fred Lehman pestering him on the side.
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Cal Waters, Joe Daukantas, and Roland Culberson.
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Mike and John getting Mike's scope ready.
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Joe Daukantas, Charlie Fredrickson, Kye Ewing, Cal Waters, Fred Lehman, and Bill Bucklew.
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Charlie Fredrickson, Kye Ewing, Cal Waters, Bill Bucklew and Fred Lehman.
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Roland Culberson and others.
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Charlie Fredrickson, Kye Ewing, Bill Bucklew and Fred Lehman.
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A couple of northerners setting up their 8" DOB.
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Kye Ewing and Roland Culberson.
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Jeff Hillmann and his new 6" Mak-Newton.
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Joe Daukantas and Cal Waters standing behing Cal's 12" LX200.
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Ken Schmidt eating a banana while sitting near his Televue refractor.
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Central viewing field looking North-West.
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Central viewing field looking North-East.
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A very barefoot Fred Lehman in front of his 12" LX200.
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East central overflow field with large house tent and a couple of nice scopes.
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Central viewing field looking West.
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Roland Culberson with his 18" Starmaster contemplating the impending darkness.
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A small group socializing in the central viewing field.
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a 10" LX200 with two unidentified astronomers.
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John, Jeff and Charlie by Jeff's set-up.
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The Grages and friends from Vero Beach.
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Central viewing field looking West.
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Central viewing field looking East.
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Joe Daukantas and Art Ahrens setting up Art's scope (back view).
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Joe Daukantas and Art Ahrens setting up Art's scope (front view).
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Ken Schmidt and Bill Bucklew sighting along Ken's Pronto.
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The magnificent Questar.
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Central viewing field looking South-West.
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Main entrance to the campgrounds with "Lights Out" warning sign.
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Joe Daukantas' Questar on a very rigid mount.
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