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The
Delmarva Stargazers host this regional star party every spring, and this
year amateur astronomers had 3 nights of potential viewing from April 6-9,
2000. Unfortunately for me, I was busily packing on Thursday
night and missed the fantastic aurora borealis! Maybe next time.
Friday
was a pleasant day, albeit quite hazy. Ernie and I arrived around
1:30pm and I got my tent and scope set up shortly thereafter. As
the skies darkened that evening, it didn't look real promising. The
brighter stars were visible, but in many places the clouds obscured a lot.
For the first couple of hours, the stargazing was rather patchy.
Then around midnight the seeing just completely fell apart. I found
myself muttering about how so many objects were about "the worst I'd ever
seen them". M51 (the Whirlpool Galaxy) in particular, I recall.
But then
something strange happened. By around 1 or 2 am the clouds had pretty
much cleared out and the seeing settled down once again. It was time
for a second wind -- we were back in business! These conditions
continued until dawn, and the night as a whole turned out to be pretty
darned good for observing.
Good thing,
too, because on Saturday a nasty front moved in. As the winds hit
and the thermometer dropped about 20 degrees during the post-dinner raffle,
the prospects for more observing that night were pretty dim. Probably
at least one-half of the attendees packed it up and headed out at that
point. Those of us from BBAA hung out for a bit longer, talking Kent
into sticking it out just in case, but then opted to head out after getting
the lastest report of the satellite imagery and feeling the first couple
of raindrops.
My thanks
go out to the wonderful folks at the Delmarva Stargazers for putting on
yet another excellent star party. I look forward to No-Frills this
fall!
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