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Tag Archives: star party

A Weekend at Almost Heaven

06 Friday Sep 2019

Posted by gfbrandenburg in astronomy, Optics, science, Telescope Making, Uncategorized

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Almost Heaven Star Party, binocular mount, dobsonian, NOVAC, Spruce Knob, star party

I spent Labor Day weekend at the Almost Heaven Star Party very close to Spruce Knob, the highest ridge in West Virginia. When the skies cleared at night, the stars and Milky Way were magnificent, but that only happened about 1 night out of three. My 12.5″ home-made Dobsonian telescope performed very well; in fact, because its primary and secondary mirror are almost fully enclosed by the light shrouds and upper cage, I was able to keep observing long after all the other refractors and Schmidt-Cassegrains were closed down by the heavy dew. (To keep the dew off of my finder scope and Telrad, I used large rubber bands to wrap chemical hand warmer packs around them, and that crude and cheap arrangement worked very well!)

Here are three photos taken by me:

Exploring the geology of Spruce Knob Mountain Center: Lyle Mars in blue shirt and white hat is in front of the entrance to a cave carved in limestone
Exploring the geology of Spruce Knob Mountain Center: Lyle Mars in blue shirt and white hat is in front of the entrance to a cave carved in limestone
Selfie with me in front of three others on the geology hike
Selfie with me in front of three others on the geology hike
This lovely sunset did not portend clear skies
This lovely sunset did not portend clear skies

All but the photo with the sextant were taken by Oscar.

Alan Goldberg teaching someone how to use a sextant
Alan Goldberg teaching someone how to use a sextant
Me studying my charts, in front of parallelogram binocular mount
Me studying my charts, in front of parallelogram binocular mount
Oscar Olmedo and me at our campsite
Oscar Olmedo and me at our campsite
Mike Laugherty and me
Mike Laugherty and me
Mike Laugherty and me
Mike Laugherty and me
Me fiddling with my 12.5" home-made dob in the daytime
Me fiddling with my 12.5″ home-made dob in the daytime
Me fiddling with the parallelogram binocular mount in the daytime
Me fiddling with the parallelogram binocular mount in the daytime
Mike Laugherty and me fiddling with binocular mount
Mike Laugherty and me fiddling with binocular mount
Left to right: Mike Laugherty, Oscar Olmedo, me
Left to right: Mike Laugherty, Oscar Olmedo, me
The lottery drawing for a whole bunch of neat prizes. None of us 3 won anything.
The lottery drawing for a whole bunch of neat prizes. None of us 3 won anything.

Great Long Weekend of Observing Near Spruce Knob, WVa at 11th Almost Heaven Star Party

18 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by gfbrandenburg in astronomy, Telescope Making

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Tags

AHSP, astronomy, ATM, dobsonian, star party

I put all of my tickets (over 30!) into the raffle for a 100-degree-apparent-field-of-view eyepiece at AHSP but didn’t win it. I probably should have put a few tickets in some other raffles. They had a whole lot of different stuff being raffled off. The eyepiece I wanted was donated by Hands On Optics. At AHSP they give you ten tickets as part of your registration, and then you can buy more of them. Elizabeth Warner and her husband left the morning of the raffle (Sunday) and gave me theirs, which was very nice of them.

At Stellafane, they used to have just ONE humongous item in the raffle, like a full set of really expensive eyepieces from Al Nagler. So it used to be in fact all-or-nothing. Don’t know if it was like that this year?
I discovered that the things I really needed were:
* an inexpensive laser collimator so I can get collimated in a minute or two all by myself, accurately, instead of fumbling around for an hour and needing an assistant… (now on order)
* an inexpensive electronic timer controller for my Canon TSi so it doesn’t need any cables to a computer (also now on order)
* a way to get rid of dew. The last night was fantastic except for the dew, which even defeated the chemical hand warmer packets that I wrapped around my finder and Telrad. I bet it got to the secondary as well. I will study up on the physics of heat production by resistors or heating wire wrapped around those and devise something.
BTW, I had to use a borrowed hack saw and masking tape to cut each of my truss tubes by exactly an inch on the second day so that I could come to a focus with all my eyepieces. I used some local rocks to deburr the cuts.
They had some great presentations on astrophotography, including how to do it simply and effectively. I was much encouraged.

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