2006 Texas Star Party

The Texas Star Party! For the amateur astronomer, one of the biggest and best star parties held in the United States. Folks come from all over the world for the dark skies, the people, the amenities not found at many star parties and the numerous nearby daytime activities as well. TSP is generally held in late April to mid May, depending on when new Moon hits. See the TSP website for more info. (Start planning now for 2007 -- May 13-20!)

Having just really started in astronomy the summer of 2005, the 2006 TSP was my first opportunity to go. I didn't decide to attend until less than a month before, so missed the initial drawing and registration and originally was going to have a "vehicle only" RV space (i.e., not big enough for an actual RV but with electric hook-ups available) since at the time I called for accommodations, there was no space in the women's bunkhouse.  I rented a cargo van to drive out there (instead of my beloved Mustang convertible -- not that there's enough room to take my big scope or much of anything else in the Mustang anyway!) and was going to run an extension cord into the van for a fan, etc. and sleep in it.  My hubby, bless his heart, isn't really into astronomy and couldn't get the whole week off anyway to go, but didn't mind me going on my own, and I knew there'd be people there that I knew from Cloudy Nights, an online community where I'm an active member and forum moderator.

For someone who is fairly new to astronomy, I've already amassed quite a bit of equipment.    I have a 10" RCX, a 4" TeleVue APO and an 80mm Nighthawk (and as of 5/21, I have an 80mm ZenithStar on the way to replace the Nighthawk), and quite a nice selection of eyepieces and other accessories. Even though I can't handle the RCX on my own -- it's simply too heavy for me, but it stays set-up on a rolling trolley in the garage at home so it's not a problem there -- I couldn't *not* take it to TSP and those dark dark skies, so I took it with me on the assumption that I could find *someone* to help me put it together, either a Cloudy Nights buddy or some other kind soul. I also took the 4" TV102 and the Nighthawk so I could share them if needed or use them for just quick views if I wanted.

Below is a general summary of my TSP trip by day, with links where applicable to photos. Enjoy! (Click on a date to go directly to that date.)

Sat. 4/22 ~ Sun. 4/23 ~ Mon. 4/24 ~ Tues. 4/25 ~ Wed. 4/26 ~ Thurs. 4/27 ~ Fri. 4/28 ~ Sat. 4/29 ~ Sun. 4/30 ~ Conclusion

Saturday, April 22 -- I decided to leave on Saturday and drive part of the way to Fort Davis, home of the Texas Star Party, so that I didn't have to get up so early on Sunday and make the whole anticipated 9-hour-ish drive in one shot. The van was packed by 3:00 on Saturday afternoon, after a snafu on getting it Friday which resulted in a 3-hour delay getting started, but I still had a few last minute things to do, so it was about 6:30 when I actually hit the road. Drove for about 3 hours and got to a major city that I thought would be a good place to stop for the night because the next good stopping point was a couple of hours further away and I didn't think I should go that much further at night in an unfamiliar vehicle on largely unfamiliar roads.

Sunday, April 23 -- I hit the road about 10:00, the drive itself was uneventful and I got to Prude Ranch right about 3:30. As I'd hoped, there was no line waiting to get in (check-in started at 2:00), so I stopped and paid the TSP fee, then went to the ranch office to check-in. Some female bunkhouse spots had opened up so I switched to one of those instead of my RV/van slot. Couldn't get cell service to let hubby know I made it so was going to send an email, but the Internet service that TSP provides was also down, so after setting up my bunk area, I went down to the office area to use the pay phone before eating dinner. I hooked up with one of my bunkmates and her husband (Kay and Paul) at dinner (they were going to tent camp but decided to take bunkhouse spots too) and chatted with them awhile, found out where they were set up. I still hadn't unpacked the scopes and stuff at this point, I didn't know yet where I was going to set up and was hoping to find some of my Cloudy Nights friends to set up with.

After dinner, I went walking around the upper field and ran across Kay and Paul so stopped to chat again and see their setup. While talking, I noticed several dobs of various sizes in the area, and wondered if they might possibly be 2 specific Cloudy Nights friends who had large dobs, Darrell and Alvin and also their friend Dennis who isn't on Cloudy Nights, so I went to ask one of the guys -- and they were indeed 3 of those dob owners!  Purely serendipitous that they were setup right there. AND there was still room between Alvin and my bunkmate, in front of Darrell, where I could set up! So they moved a few things to block that area; it was only an hour before "dark out" -- which is when all non-red lights must be extinguished, no vehicles can be driven on the ranch after then, etc. -- and only half an hour before sunset, so I went and got the van and drove it up to the field and they all pitched in to unload the scopes and related equipment and get the RCX on the tripod so we could put the RCX's box and the dolly it had been strapped to back into the van and get it off the field.

Once I changed into warmer observing clothes (it was getting chilly with the sun down) and got back up to the field it was getting pretty dark, so I didn't bother trying to finish setting up any of the scopes and was just going to observe with my binos, but Alvin and Darrell kept dragging me to their 30" and 18" scopes, respectively, to look at eye candy and faint fuzzies. I was so unprepared that I didn't even keep any notes of what I looked at that night or the next night, which I regret, although I have some general notes of objects viewed through their scopes over several nights altogether.  But I do know that my very first view through Alvin's 30" was of M51 -- WOW oh WOW oh WOW oh WOW!    It was simply *AMAZING*. Spiral arms and dust lanes and knots and the bridge to the companion galaxy!! It was just astounding.  This first night wasn't an all-nighter as the weather deteriorated around 1:00 or so and folks were tired, so bedtime was about 1:30 after putting stuff away and covering up, etc.

Monday, April 24 -- After getting up, I went and finished setting up the RCX and the Nighthawk, but didn't get the TV102 done by lunchtime. Darrell was up there also, and we went and got Alvin from the Vendor building (he was selling copies of observing books he's written -- check out Faint Fuzzies for info!) just before noon to go eat lunch, where we ran into Dennis (their other buddy) and Len (who knows Dennis and Darrell from prior TSPs).  Then I took a nap after lunch, after staying up late the night before and getting up early and trying to get acclimated to the new location.    I got online in the afternoon since Internet service was finally working so I could check in with my friends on Cloudy Nights to let everyone know I had made it safely to TSP and was still alive.    I missed the guys for dinner so sat with some folks from Houston who were also new to astronomy and TSP.

There weren't any lectures/talks on Monday evening (those started on Tuesday), so I went back up on the observing field when it was still pretty light and took some pictures of set-ups and people getting ready for observing. The skies were great when it got dark -- it was a super night. Monday was an all-nighter for most of us in our little area, except Darrell who had a scheduled birding walk in the morning, we stayed up until it started getting light. I got to bed about 6:30. Even though I got all the scopes set up (did the TV102 before dark), I still ended up spending more time on Alvin's 30" than I did on my scopes.    He just kept dragging me over to look at new things, especially after Scorpius and Sagittarius and the other summer beauties rose up well. Lots of cool galaxies before that too.

See pictures from Monday here.

Tuesday, April 25 -- After staying up all night, got up just in time for lunch at noon, then boarded the bus with Alvin and Kay and Paul at 1:00 for the trip to tour the McDonald Observatory. I don't remember all the specifics of the stuff they showed us, but we saw the 107-inch Harlan J. Smith Telescope, the 82-inch Otto Struve Telescope, and the big honking 362-inch Hobby-Eberly Telescope. And of course duly visited the visitors center to spend money on souvenirs () before getting back to the Ranch a little after 5:00. I skipped dinner when we got back to go online for a bit before going to Darrell's birding lecture at 7:30. While at the bunkhouse on the computer, I met Faith, one of the Cloudy Nights members who came to TSP all the way from England; she'd just arrived a couple of hours earlier. After Darrell's talk, I just went back to the bunkhouse around 9:00 and hung out for a couple of hours before bed as it was completely cloudy and no observing was to be done. I was so tired from staying up all night Monday and not getting a nap in during the day that I was not that unhappy about the clouds... 

See pictures from Tuesday here.

Wednesday, April 26 -- I took it easy when I first got up, then went to the vendor building late in the morning and spent money (just on t-shirts -- really!), to lunch with the guys, then we hooked up with other members of Cloudy Nights to go into Fort Davis for chocolate malts (or other drinks of our choice) at the Fort Davis Drug Store. It was really fun to meet some other Cloudy Nights members and we had a nice, if short, time together. The afternoon was more of the same leisurely pursuits, wandering around the ranch, taking pictures, updating the Cloudy Nights forum TSP thread with stories of what we'd been up to, etc. (Gotta love the Internet, real-time live updates! ) There just weren't really any afternoon talks that I was all that interested in that didn't overlap other planned activities, and none in my free time that I cared much about. I should try to do more of those if I go next year even if the topic doesn't seem interesting to me at first; never know what I might learn!

I had dinner with the guys, then we decided to go on a leisurely after-dinner stroll, to bird-watch and just get some easy exercise after a filling dinner. That was about an hour, then back up to the observing field to start getting ready for what was looking to be a decent night despite early predictions of another cloud-out. Most of us in our area ended up staying up until around 2:00 before conditions got really bad. Faith got to spend quite a bit of time with Alvin's scope and I was on my scopes more this time. Alvin was using mine some too, while Faith was sketching objects at his, and we did some comparisons with Kay and Paul's 10" LX200 versus my 10" RCX, which showed the RCX winning on optics as you might expect but not (in my eyes) just completely blowing it way out of the water.  It was a good observing night.

See pictures from Wednesday here.

Thursday, April 27 -- Nothing specific was planned for today until dinner time and then the evening's lecture by Stephen O'Meara, and I pretty much took it easy all day, reading and on the computer and wandering around the ranch a bit. Went to dinner in Fort Davis with the guys, then back to the ranch for the lecture, books by Mr. O'Meara in hand for signing afterwards. It was a very interesting talk, he's good as a speaker. We each had one or another of his books (quite by accident that I took one for some light reading, the one of Walter Scott Houston's columns that Mr. O'Meara compiled) and so got them personally signed. Afterwards, we headed up to the field to get things ready for observing; thunderstorms had been forecast as a possibility for the afternoon and evening, but skies were mostly clear nearly all night other than some low lightning in the N/NW and also in the E/SE throughout the night, and occasionally some clouds would scuttle across the sky and then disappear.  It was also a bit hazy from time to time, and breezy but not really chilly. We made it until about 3:00 before packing it in so it was another unexpected good observing night.

Friday, April 28 -- On Friday morning, I went up to the vendor building to check out one of the vendors I hadn't yet who was down in an area by themselves with t-shirts, books and trinkets of all kinds. When I got there, Stephen O'Meara was in there signing books for them to sell so I bought a couple of his I didn't have and was able to get them personally autographed -- I hadn't wanted to hold up the signing line Thursday night getting any others than the one I had with me, so that was kind of a cool unexpected bonus.

We were under a wind advisory during the afternoon and sure enough, later after lunch while sitting out on the upper field with Darrell using the computer online, a dust devil whipped up out of nowhere down the lane and knocked down and busted a dob sitting out for sale.   I would have hated to have been that guy! I started packing up some of the bunk stuff in the afternoon before dinner, organizing clothes and papers and such that managed to get spread all over the bunk above me. I had dinner with the guys, then we hung out until almost time for the Friday night giveaway (skipping the night's lecture) -- you have to be present to win, so if you're not there if your name is drawn for the door and grand prizes, you don't get 'em.  Darrell won a book by Robert Reeves, the astrophotography guy, which he later got autographed. Afterwards, there was a stampede out to the observing fields.

It was very windy still and chilly, but skies were clear and very good and it was another all-nighter for most folks. I decided at the last minute to do one of the TSP official observing programs for which you can earn a pin; these are apparently much coveted, you can only get the pins at TSP and the lists and pins change each year unless "they" decide to hold it over for the next year if observing was particularly bad one year, or if there are leftovers from prior years you can choose to do a prior year's program. So I chose to do the binocular program and spent a good portion of the night tracking down 47 of the 50 listed objects (I only needed 25 for the pin but was having fun getting them that way so decided to carry on). I still managed to get some views through the RCX as well.

It was so windy that we didn't use Alvin's 30" much, and he was using my 4" TV102 to do the 2005 Observing Challenge program (held over from last year obviously), tracking down Arp Galaxies -- using a 4" refractor, without a finder scope! And he did it -- he needed to get at least 25 and got 26! Observing programs are done essentially on the honor & trust system; other than tracking the time you saw an object, which they just glance at to see if it makes sense (and barely that), there's nothing else you have to do to prove you really did the program. Alvin also got "called over" by Barbara Wilson to where she, Larry Mitchell and some of the other big names were set up to help find/observe something, and could have stayed there if he chose but he wanted to finish his program. He made quite an impression on that crew and was invited to set up with them and come a day early like they do next year. Faith also spent quite a bit of time with that crew on Friday, they were impressed with her as well! We stayed up until about 6:30 and could still see part of the Milky Way through the dawn twilight as we finished packing up. It was a pretty amazing night.

Saturday, April 29 -- After another late night (early morning?) I got up just before lunch, which I had with Alvin, Kay and Paul. Afterwards, I did some more bunk packing and also got online some, then went up to the observing field about 3:30 to start packing up the RCX. Most folks were packing up their big scopes and planning on using small scopes or binos on Saturday night, or mooching off of other scopes, to be able to leave early on Sunday. The guys were already well on their way to packing up the big dobs when I got there; Kay and Paul were also up there but not packing up their LX200; they helped me and the guys with their stuff. Doing all that took the rest of the afternoon until dinner and by the end, we were left with my 80mm and 4" refractors, Alvin's 4" refractor, Kay and Paul's 10" LX200, Len's 8" dob and various sets of binoculars to share amongst 7-8 people.

We all went to dinner after that, then some went to the night's speech and the rest scattered to do whatever until the approximate time for that night's giveaway of the remaining door and grand prizes.  Faith won some much needed cash on Saturday night!  The wind was much lighter than Friday night but it was chillier; most folks were tired from Friday night plus wanting to get an early start on Sunday, so some of the guys gave up around midnight, the rest of us around 2:30. It was a shame, because the skies were looking reallllly good, but between being cold and tired, and knowing we each had long drives ahead of us the next day, it wasn't much worth staying up all night when it wouldn't really be enjoyed.

See pictures from Saturday here.

Sunday, April 30 -- I got up at 7:30; Alvin, Dennis & Darrell were already gone as was Len, so unfortunately I didn't get a chance to bid my new friends a proper goodbye.   Faith bid her farewells as her ride was leaving early too. I went up to the observing field and packed the rest of my scope stuff with a little help from Kay at the end, went back down and got the rest of my bunk stuff and said goodbye to our other bunkmates while she hunted down Paul, then went back up and helped them take down and pack their scope stuff. After that the three of us went to breakfast in Fort Davis and then said our goodbyes, then I gassed up the van and hit the road right at noon. I stopped a couple of times briefly at rest stops but didn't need gas for the van and had snacks to keep my hunger occupied after the big breakfast so didn't need to stop for a meal. I made good time on the drive and pulled in my driveway right about 8:30, tired but happy after a good week.

Conclusion --  I'd rate TSP 2006 as 5 stars (*****) and really great fun!!!   I'm glad that I went, and I plan on trying to go again...and again...and again!

Some firsts for me -- saw the Zodiacal light after sunset every night except the first night (Sunday) and Tuesday (when we got clouded out); first time looking through anything bigger than a 10" scope, which included a 14.5" dob, 2 different 18" dobs and a 30" dob; saw the Horsehead Nebula; saw the center star in the Ring Nebula; saw many faint galaxies in the 30".

Some of the many objects seen on various nights through various scopes -- M42, Horsehead Nebula, M51, M81/M82, NGC 4565, M8, M20, M17, M16, M4, M22, M11, Omega Centauri, Centaurus A, M57 (center star!), M27, North America Nebula, Veil Nebula, M13, M92, Ghost of Jupiter, M35, M36, M37, M38, M1, M41, M44, NGC 6231, M6, M7, M101, the Mice galaxies, the Ringtail galaxies, M59, M60, Saturn, Jupiter, the B and C fragments of Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann3/73P; and many many others.  I really regret not keeping better notes.

page last modified 5/28/2006