[CMAS] Report on the 2018 Maine State Star Party

[Dwight M. Lanpher]

Class picture for the 2018 Maine State Star Party

Since this year's MSSP was concurrent with Stellafane, so it was a little
light on astronomer attendee's with only thirteen participating. Another six
from Charlie Sawyer's recent spring/summer Pembroke Library astronomy course
were also there. But there was a bonus; with a well filled Cobscook Bay
State Park by visitors from away that came to see the Persied Meteor shower.
An estimated 80 to 90 campers joined us for Friday evening's observing.

The campground in recent years has promoted the MSSP with fliers at the main
gate and Downeast Amateur Astronomers provided a large festival tent for
presentations and shade from the sun. I understand that there were some
weather cancellations of events to the west but Friday night in Edmunds was
spectacular. Skies were completely clear and the humidity was so low that
the usual dew from the adjacent bay never formed on anyone's telescope all
evening. There were six telescopes set up for viewing and along with the
amateur astronomers, there was a steady stream of campers all night. I had
several groups that would stay with me for fifteen or twenty minutes and
then they would move on and swap with other groups around the other
telescopes. Certainly it was a leisurely evening of star gazing and
conversation without the craziness of the Acadia Night Sky Festival crowds.
The Milky Way was bright and the dark lanes were black. (I've only measured
darker skies in the Katahdin area.) There was no sign of air glow that
evening that I have observed their in the past and there was no sign of
light pollution from Machias twenty miles to the west. I suspect any light
dome was obscured by the tree line several hundred yards away.
The Persids were off to a fine start on Friday night. I lost count of the
number that I saw but there were regular exclamations from the crowd every
couple minutes. All that was necessary was to just look up and another
meteor streak was virtually guaranteed in a very short time. This was a
vacation for me and I was happy to just take requests from the crowd and
offer up some common Messier nebulae and star clusters. I did see an
exceptional view of Andromeda from a nearby 8" reflector... was that you
Wayne?  Mars was mostly buried in the trees to the east but once it did
finally clear the branches about eleven o'clock, the view was sharp; but,
still without any features obscured by the dust storm. Early views of Venus,
and fine views of Jupiter and Saturn filled the evenings repertoire with
lots of oohs and ahs from Saturn newbies.

On Saturday, we started early with some clouds but by mid morning the sky
was open and it was time to setup some solar telescopes. No one bothered
with white light filtered scopes because there were no sunspots. Charlie put
up his H-Alpha which tipped me off to a little activity. There was a tiny
spicule at about 1 o'clock and a filament in the lower middle... enough to
warrant setting up another scope. Besides, I was interested in trying my
Coronado H-Alpha refractor on an iOptron AZ tripod mount. For any of you
that own this mount, you know that it has a clearance problem with the
tripod legs interfering with long refractors. I slid the draw tube all the
way in to do the initial target alignment and as soon as I had it pointing
at the sun, extended for a normal focus. That turned out to be a successful
workaround. The advantage of the iOptron mount is that it has the Sun as a
target object built-in. The mount tracked the Sun nicely all afternoon.

Astronomy Jeopardy was put off till next year as we we relaxed and enjoy the
nice weather. All things astronomy were discussed under the tent during the
afternoon. However, clouds were expected that evening, with even a
possibility of rain, so tents were taken down and scopes packed. At seven
o'clock we had more visitors from the campground for Jim Cormier's
presentation on "Binocular Astronomy." Jim is a lifelong amateur astronomer,
expert film and detail astrophotographer and currently lives in Sullivan,
Maine.
In recent years he's started traveling to remote dark sky locations, as well
as his own dark backyard, to view the Milky Way and expansive dark sky
objects. He covered the basics of eye relief, apparent and actual field of
view, magnification, exit pupil and contrast. Several binocular examples
were shown ranging  from handheld Vixen SG 2.1 x 42, 30° binoculars to Orion
100mm large binocular telescopes with the various features and limitations
discussed. But mostly he imparted his visceral feeling about the two eye
advantage of rich field views under truly dark skies. His presentation was
well received and questions from an appreciative audience were answered.

At 9:00 pm the presentation was over and the skies were clouded over, as
expected for Saturday night. Not a single star was visible. So, with cars
already packed, the group headed out and I'm sure that many will be back
next year, I certainly will be. A special thanks to Charlie Sawyer for his
tireless effort putting this together. I know it's a lot of work and the
Maine State Star Party organized look always shows from his efforts.

Jim Cormier talks about binocular viewing and observing under dark skies. As
well as a lifelong love of astronomy, he
was a Light Pollution Surveyor for Island Astronomy Institute's copy of the
National Park Dark Sky Survey System.

Thanks, and "a good time was had by all."

---Dwight Lanpher, club liaison




-- Celebrating the starlit skies of Maine & New England --

Dwight M. Lanpher, Club Liaison
P.O. Box 472, 1 Summit Road
Northeast Harbor, ME 04662

President: Penobscot Valley Star Gazers
member: IDA, IES, AAS, ACAC, ASNNE, ATMoB, CMAS, COG, DEAA, GAAC, NHAS,
NSAAC, PVSG, SMA
Telephone: (207) 276-5350, FAX 276-4067
               
"Good friends are like stars. Although you may not see them you know they're
always there." -Christy Evans



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