Stellafane posts, anyone?

Anyone hear anything about the conference this year? Couldn't make it
due to a previous committment...


Gil

http://www.stellafane.com/convention/2006/index.html

"Gil" wrote in message
ups.com...
Anyone hear anything about the conference this year? Couldn't make it
due to a previous committment...


Gil

Reports on Stellafane Links that I have found:

http://forums.astronomydaily.com/viewtopic.php?p=43579

http://community.webshots.com/album/552709562FJsuGA

http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=45096

http://www.assne.org/board/viewtopic...eec2bbd0e90173

Clear Skies!!!!
Andy

Andy's Astro Page
http://home.g-net.net/~andy/astro.htm




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"Gil" wrote in message
ups.com...
Anyone hear anything about the conference this year? Couldn't make it
due to a previous committment...


Gil

Gil wrote:
Anyone hear anything about the conference this year? Couldn't make it
due to a previous committment...


Gil

Attendance was way down relative to previous years, perhaps off by
25%-35% up through noontime on Saturday. Smallest gathering I've seen
in at least 20 years (and I've been attending 42 years without
interuption), especially considering the very fine weather that
prevailed. Also noted amazingly light highway traffic on Rt. 91
returning home. People finally feeling the pinch from the gas prices?

JBortle

Anyone hear anything about the conference this year? Couldn't make it
due to a previous committment...


My wife and I arrived Saturday morning, and did the usual stuff. By
evening, it looked like a storm was rolling in and a lot of folks lit out
like it was a hurricane or worse! It never did rain. Around 10:30 I walked
over to the observing area just downhill of the McGregor Observatory to see
what I could see.

There weren't many folks left, and I looked through a couple of scopes at
some targets in Sagittarius. I wandered about, and came upon a guy with a
little dob. I asked him what size the mirror was, and he said 4", and
off-axis. This caught my attention, and when I asked him for more info he
said that he was Dan MacShane of DGMOptics. Well, I spent almost 3 hours
observing through that little newtonian, and trying out different filters -
as astro filters seem to be where Dan is devoting most of his development
time. I had a great time, and really enjoyed the fine performance of the
4". We chased holes in the clouds, and sometimes lost the target before we
could both get a look. Epsilon Lyra split beautifully at 80x, blah blah
blah. Great optics. I also was impressed with his filters, and he
mentioned that they were favourably reviewed by Phil Harrington in Astronomy
Magazine. He handed me one to blink M31, and I was surprised to find that
it did substantially enhance the view. His nebula filter really lit up the
M57, but did not kill the stars. I would like to compare them side-by-side
with Lumicon's.

I had a great night observing with Dan, and felt that I was amply rewarded
for not chickening out like my friends! Oh, and a young guy observing with
us asked why Dan bothered to make the off-axis mirrors round as opposed to
leaving them pie shaped. Good question, no?

Dennis

"Dennis Woos" wrote in message
...

(Snip)


I had a great night observing with Dan, and felt that I was amply rewarded
for not chickening out like my friends! Oh, and a young guy observing
with us asked why Dan bothered to make the off-axis mirrors round as
opposed to leaving them pie shaped. Good question, no?

Dennis

An off-axis circular aperture actually has a significantly better point
spread function than does a pie-shaped aperture from which it might be cut.
Of course the pie-shape does have more collection area if you are only
interested in dim, diffuse objects.

--
Adam Norton

Norton Engineered Optics
Optical design and systems engineering for Silicon Valley and beyond.
http://home.ix.netcom.com/~anorton/

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"Gil" wrote
...
Anyone hear anything about the conference this year? Couldn't make it
due to a previous committment...


Gil,

The attendance was down, as was the number of scopes entered into the
judging. However there were some fine scopes entered. The one that I really
noticed (as did the judges) was a giant binocular chair/mount that the
observer rides on. The optics were two 6-inch Newts. People who observed
with it said that the views were wonderful.

After a late afternoon rain on Friday (about an hour) the skies cleared
beautifully. A friend and I set up our two Obsession 20's a few feet apart
in the camping field north of the food tent. A group of us used the two
scopes all night with different objects in each. It's really fun to switch
back and forth between two big scopes that are always on different objects.
I used my scope to mostly work the southern sky. That's an area that is
difficult for me to observe from home - and I didn't have to use my ladder
much! After around 3:00am I saw a number of Delta Aq meteors while hunting
galaxy clusters in the same constellation.

On Saturday it was clear early and I did some solar observing with my
PST. Later on it clouded up and threatened thunderstorms. However, it never
hit the area and some friends and I used a little 6-inch Dob to hunt down
bright stuff in the sucker holes. I never got to the swap tables, but some
friends got some good buys there.

The new building is great! It's much better than the old tent. Because of
a forecast for bad storms on Saturday they held the main program in the new
barn. The side doors can very quickly be opened or closed. It still needs a
floor. The main program speaker was very good to someone like me interested
in the history of ATM'ing and Stellafane.

Sunday was a beautifully sunny morning to clean up, have breakfast, and
head over to the Hartness House. The one downside there was that the owners
of Hartness House want the STM's to start paying for heat and light for the
ATM Museum there. I hope that it's not the start of the end for it.

As for the low attendance: It may have been the gas prices, the poor
weather forecast (which was wrong!!), or the time of the year, i.e., July
rather than August. I usually camp the Thursday night before in Ascutney
State Park, and it is always nearly filled with Stellafaners or others.
However, for the first time in the 10 years I've done this the park was
nearly empty! There was only one or two other campsites occupied, and the
ranger said that several people with paid reservations never showed!

Bottom line: 2006 was yet another great Stellafane, including one night of
beautifully clear and dark skies that let me find a number of new objects
with my 20-inch. At one point I had 4 galaxies in the eyepiece field of my
26mm Nagler and there were two others just outside the field.

George Normandin