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Mid Florida Star Gaze '02 - Venus Town Clubhouse
March 14 - 17, 2002
Jay Albert
A Trip to Venus: The Mid Florida Stargaze
The Mid Florida Stargaze in Venus, Florida from Thursday, March 14th to
Sunday, March 17th was without a doubt the greatest deep sky experience
I've ever had. The skies over my former home in New Jersey were never
this good even 20 years ago. While I've had great skies out West, in
the Berkshires, in Australia's Outback and New Zealand, I've never had
such an array of telescopes to look through. I was pleased that the
event turned out to be less structured and more freewheeling than
strictly a Messier Marathon. People were observing every type of
celestial object under the darkest skies in Florida. The air-conditioned
clubhouse with its kitchen, large meeting room and indoor bathrooms was a
real bonus.
Thanks are owed to Kye and Al Ewing for inspiring, organizing and
helping to prepare the event, to Fred Lehman for site preparation,
to Fred's wife, Willette, for gift bags and Saturday night's dinner,
to James Daggett for the name tags, to Chuck Pisa of Sarasota for
donating the door prizes and finally to all the participants for
creating an atmosphere of enthusiasm and friendliness. Everyone
shared their scopes and their knowledge. I should also mention
that thanks are due to me for saving Friday night (Thursday night
and Saturday night were spectacular). Friday evening started out
mediocre with numerous clouds and unsteady seeing. It got steadily
worse until the sky became completely cloudy with sporadic lightning
high in the clouds. Around 9:15 I decided to take action and took
down my scope. Within five minutes after storing the last of my
equipment, the first few stars could be seen through thinning areas
in the overcast. It was magnificently clear before 10pm.
The diversity and quality of the telescopes and other equipment
present was impressive. There were regular and computerized
dobsonians as large as 22", APO refractors, conventional Newtonians,
lots of SCT's and a couple of Maksutovs. Chuck Pisa also had
numerous items for sale from his stores. I was able to test and
buy a TeleVue mirror diagonal and an OIII filter. The mirror
diagonal was a substantial improvement over my traditional prism
diagonal on Jupiter and Saturn. The light scattering glow around
the planets was almost entirely eliminated and contrast was
significantly enhanced. I tested the OIII filter on a number of
objects with mixed results. The Rosette Nebula (actually visible
to the naked eye!) was much enhanced in comparison with my deep
sky filter and unfiltered views. On the planetary nebulas NGC
2438 in the open cluster M46 (one of my favorite clusters) and
NGC 4631 in Corvus, the OIII filter significantly brightened
the nebulosity and revealed structure not otherwise seen.
Because it's so bright, no filtration was necessary on the
"Ghost of Jupiter" nebula in Hydra. AT 214x in my 7" maksutov,
this nebula showed distinct internal structure. On the other
hand, NGC 2024 (the "Flame Nebula") was visible without
filtration but completely disappeared with the OIII filter.
On M42, the filter enhanced the brightness of the nebulosity
while so dimming the associated stars that the Trapezium almost
completely vanished. The OIII filter is clearly more useful on
some types of nebulosity, such as planetary, and less on others.
The camping equipment was also diverse and ranged from simple
tents to plush RV's and trailers. A few of us (including me)
stayed in a motel 26 miles away in Moorehaven because the
facilities in Lake Placid (only 10 miles away) were booked
for the Sebring races. Hopefully, next year's Highland
Stargaze won't coincide with the Sebring event.
There were too many wonderful sights to list, including
comet Ikeya Zhang and numerous M and NGC objects. Among the
more memorable (aside from the nebulae mentioned above) were
M78, clusters M46, M47, Tau Canis Majoris, M35 with the
background cluster NGC2158, galaxies NGC2903, M65 & 66,
NGC3628, M81 & 82, M51, M104, Centaurus A and NGC4565.
My first sight of the globular cluster Omega Centauri in
Jim Kimball's 14.5" computerized Starmaster, however, was
overwhelming. I later saw it in Vic Menard's 22" computerized
Starmaster as he drilled deeper into its core at 300x and
400x revealing dense star chains and odd shaped gaps.
NGC4565 was also incredible in the 22". There was also
the best view of the sun I've ever had through a $6,000
hydrogen alpha filter mounted on a 6" APO refractor. Yes,
$6,000 just for the filter! One of the most mind-bending
sights was a lensed quasar first spotted by Jim Kimball
in his Starmaster. The quasar popped in and out of view
in his scope. In Vic's 22" scope, both lensed portions
could be seen; one was magnitude 15.8 and the other
magnitude 16.3!
I'm already looking forward to next year's Stargaze.
Jim Mayes
Central viewing field not yet filled up with scopes.
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Solar viewing in the late afternoon.
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Southeast corner of field just starting to fill with scopes.
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World's niftiest light weight portable telescope.
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Northeast corner of field filling up with camp trailers.
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Southeast corner of field filling up with scopes.
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Northeast corner of field.
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Socialization in progress.
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Northwest corner of field with camp trailers and scopes.
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Central viewing field slowly filling up with scopes.
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Tenters lined up along the southern edge of the field.
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Southwestern corner of viewing field.
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Central field with a few more scopes.
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Far southeast corner of field.
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James Daggett leisurely viewing the sun.
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Standing in line to catch a view of the sun.
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Far southeast corner of field.
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Socialization in progress.
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Kris Whitten, Kye Ewing, and Jim Kimball.
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Roland Culberson's trailer showing his vanity plate "GOT SKY".
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Roland Culberson sitting by his trailer.
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Roland Culberson's teenage son.
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John Clifton examining the sunspots.
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Central field filling up with the big guns.
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Refractor.
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Jim Kimball, Kye Ewing, and Kris Whitten.
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Preparing for sunset.
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Jay Albert waiting for the sunset.
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Roland Culberson checking out his eyepiece collection.
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Sunset getting closer.
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Vic Menard adjusting the finder scope while George DeBarros looks on in amazement.
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Looking down the barrel of the big cannon.
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Celestron 14" SCT on CG11 Mount.
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Jim Kimball standing by his 14.5" Starmaster with full GOTO.
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Big old DOB.
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Celestron 9.25".
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More scopes.
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James Daggett memorizing the evening's charts.
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Wooden DOB.
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Mak-Cass.
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Refractor.
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