The Sixth Annual Imerman Park Public Star Party

The Sixth Annual Imerman Park Public Star Party

NELM: Varied, from 2 to 5
Seeing: Poor, improving a bit over the course of the evening.
Conditions: Partly Cloudy
Temp: 65 F
Last Year's Attendance: 200+

*The Imerman Park Star Party is the Sunset Area Astronomers yearly
public outreach party. Held just out side of Saginaw Michigan, you
won't find the darkest skies in the state, but you will find some of
the nicest amateur astronomers around.*

As I piled equipment into the back of the Durango, my wife, watching
me just couldn't resist asking: "So, do you want to tell me why you
are driving from our nice dark skies into the city to go to this star
party?"

"Sometimes", I explained, "there is more to astronomy than equipment,
dark sites and transparent skies."

A few minutes later, Keith arrived and we set out.

After a 90 minute drive we arrived, pulled up to the observing field
and began to unload. You know, it's absolutely amazing how much stuff
you can bring and still manage to forget things (note to self: buy
another lenspen or two).

Friends quickly found us. For some, this was the first time we had
met face to face. For someone stranded in a remote corner of
Michigan, the internet can be a real lifesaver when it comes to
fellowship. If you are reading this online, then you probably have
some understanding of that. How many of you have good friends
scattered throughout the country that you have never meet? I know I
have many, and I suspect it's not all that different for you.

There was a large array of equipment spread across the field; mostly
small to medium aperture dobsonians. Setting up the TeleVue 102, I
joked to Joe that it looked like I had brought a knife to a gunfight.
(You get extra credit if you recognize the quote.) Folks quickly
clustered around the rather different looking mount that I unpacked.
Tom Peters (www.discmounts.com) had shipped me a DM-6 for review and
evaluation just the day before, and it got a baptism by fire this
evening. Everyone who took the time to look was extremely impressed
with the fit, finish, and operation. Personally, I thought the mount
performed extremely well, and can hardly wait to get it out for some
solo runs where I can see just how good it really is.

Ed was there, with his nice little Orion Mak, and Roland showed with
his Nexstar 8i and Denkmeier binoviewer. Kevin had his gorgeous
homemade 13.1 inch dob with Coulter optics while Pat had his 12.5
Discovery and Mike had brought his dob as well. Mike also brought
along some interesting eyepieces that I hope to take a closer look at
in September. Dale didn't bring a scope, but he compensated for it by
bringing some Zeiss-Jenna orthos for us to drool over (and even look
through! g). There were various other scopes and amateurs setup
over the field, and while the usual gathering of autostar equipped
scopes was present, one of the most interesting scopes on the field
was a homemade 6" f10 dob. This amazing little scope had a ¾ inch
secondary for a 12 percent central obstruction, and despite extremely
poor sky conditions gave very nice images of the moon and planets.
Joe, meanwhile, had done what I'd contemplated and didn't bring a
thing, preferring to rove around and spend the evening talking with
folks.

But the focus wasn't really on the equipment.

The Sunset Astronomical Society had made sure they had a good set of
presentations and speakers for the evening. Their topics ranged from
"How I got started in Astronomy" to "The Apollo Landing Sites", but
undoubtedly the peak for many of the adults and children was when
Kevin did his demonstration with liquid nitrogen. Kevin was in his
element as he held (educational) court all evening even leading a
"Tour of the Night Sky" under nature's planetarium. With his green
laser waving here and there we could hear him clearly as he pointed
out the constellations for interested members of the public. The SAS
did a very good job of keeping the public entertained and educated for
hours.

But for me, this wasn't the spotlight of the evening either.

We visited the usual targets over the evening, Luna, M13, M27, Mars
and all the others you find at any summer star party. Sub-par
atmospheric weather conditions had pretty much guaranteed that this
would not be a spectacular evening, and we weren't disappointed.
Dale, our new Discovery dealer, and I joked that maybe this was the
time to bring that cloud filter to market. Mars and Luna threw up
decent images, but nearly everything else was washed out by
atmospheric smooge. (Nice technical term there, eh?) Even so,
everyone was impressed by the two Denkmeier binoviewers on the field.
And both Joe and Dale commented on how far binoviewers have come in
the last five years, now giving images both brighter and sharper. You
could almost hear the wallets shrink as my fellow amateurs looked
through the dual naglers.

Even though this wasn't the night to do detailed comparisons, Ed
brought his Widescan III (Japan, $199) and we did a direct comparison
to the BW Optik (China, $95) knock off. Although conditions were very
poor, no one saw much difference between the two. We hope to do a
more in-depth comparison at some point in the future. General
consensus was that for $95 the BW is a heck of a deal.

We tried to compare Dale's 12.5mm Zeiss-Jenna to my 13mm Nagler t6,
but the seeing was just too poor to come to any valid conclusions. As
an aside (and a joke), I'm tempted to post to SAA just to say that the
vaunted Zeiss was just too fuzzy for my tastes.

M13 was a fuzzy smudge in the 102, just about the worst I've ever seen
it. When the seeing steadied, you could resolve about the outer 1/3
with the aid of averted vision, but even that wasn't sharp. In
various other (larger) scopes across the field, it was a brighter
smudge but still just a smudge.

Late in the evening Mars threw up a nice image with a fair amount of
detail, and many of the public were quite happy with that, for this of
course, was what many of them came to see.

The public tended to crowd around the larger scopes on the field,
leaving Kevin to put on his show (and he did a great job). Feeling
more than a little lazy this evening, I was glad to leave him to it.
My refractor did occasionally generate a line, but for the most part
it was mainly interested amateurs who wanted to take a gander through
entirely too much money. It was (as Joe was fond of pointing out),
between the scope, binoviewer, dual Naglers and the mount; the $6000
view. Personally, I didn't think the $6000 view was all that much
better than some of the $1000 views on the field, but I'll have to say
that at least I'm not burdened by a heavy wallet. In all honesty
though, I'd also have to say that the TeleVue did throw up some very
fine Mars images, often with the low contrast features visible in it
while invisible in other scopes. Even Joe Public commented on this
several times during the evening.

But really, the observing wasn't even the point of the evening.

The point of the Imerman Park Star Party, is not so much to bask in
the wonder of the night sky and enjoy the beauty of creation, (I
suppose this is a good thing, especially considering the sky
conditions this evening) but rather it's an experience in outreach and
fellowship. Outreach to the members of the Bay area communities, and
fellowship amongst a core of mid-Michigan amateur astronomers.

Earlier in the day several of us were burning up the lines of
communication trying to figure out what everyone else was going to do.
It was pretty unanimous. All were willing to go, even in the rain,
as long as someone else was going to be there.

One of the highlights of my evening came when a young boy gasped as he
looked through my scope around 1:00 am. His mother confided to me,
"He's never looked through a telescope before, and he really wanted to
see mars this year." He watched for a few minutes then turned around,
elbowed his sister and stated, "You really gotta see this!"

Given the cloudy skies, I was amazed at just how many non-astronomers
showed up. But you know, we all had something in common; Joe Public
and Jim Amateur alike. All of us are hungry to learn, to experience
the night sky and to share it with our peers. For as solitary a hobby
as astronomy can be, when shared it is an even more powerful
experience.

Clear Skies

Tom T.