The sign at the campground read “Star Party Tonight”. I had no idea what that meant. I guess I have been reading too many trash magazines at the grocery checkout line because the first thing I thought was that they would be busing in celebrities from L.A. for a big bash. I was very wrong.
A Star Party can be defined as a gathering of amateur astronomers for the purpose of observing the sky and it can be traced back at least to the 1700’s when George III of England hosted such parties. And, more recently, President Obama hosted a Star Party for school children on the White House Lawn in 2009.
The Southern California Desert Video Astronomers (SCDVA) is a group of local amateur astronomers with a passion for everything in the sky. Their mission statement is: To educate and promote astronomy in order to preserve the dark skies of the California Desert and everywhere for future generations. Their passion lead them to lease a portion of the campground we were staying at and turn it into an astronomy theatre and they would be hosting the party. So now, we had an opportunity to attend our first star party.
Left and below: The family of one of the founding members of SCDVA donated some of his sculpture to the theatre after his death.
The party began with a potluck that we missed because we were hiking at Joshua Tree but we made it in time for the main event. Everyone set up lawn chairs in front of two huge screens. They have two screens because they usually have two telescopes operating at the same time. They also use high tech video cameras and projectors that can put the deep sky images on the big screens with surprisingly “Hubble like” quality. The organizers bought all of the equipment, built the theatre and leased the land with money out of their own pockets which I imagine could be worth more than my house. And, they put on these parties for free.
I spent the evening wrapped in a blanket kicked back in my chair while the Hippygeek and the Big Dude had their eyes glued to the eyepieces of the telescopes and video monitors in the control area. Every few minutes a new image would pop up on one or both of the screens and Tom, one of the organizers, who spoke in a strangely Carl Sagan like voice would explain what we were looking at.
At one point, I went over to one of the telescopes to look at Jupiter and found the Big Dude mesmerized. When I spoke to him, he held up his index finger to say “wait”, so he wouldn’t miss anything Tom had to say. The Lil’ Dude and I made it to 10:00pm when the desert chill got to us but the Hippygeek and the Big Dude stayed up until midnight.
I was so taken with the whole event that it didn’t occur to me to take pictures of the images until Tom mentioned it late in the evening so unfortunately, I only have a few pictures to share.
below: Watch the sequence as the space object shoots past the nebula.
Although the evening was fun and the images amazing, the most enlightening part of the evening was an introduction to the dark sky movement. The movement was started by the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) established in 1988, it is devoted “to preserve and protect the nighttime environment and our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting.” They are also involved in research regarding light pollution and health. To learn how you can promote dark skies and see how your city ranks for light pollution, check the dark sky finder on their website.
So, although I didn’t get to see any celebrities, I did get to see some amazing deep space images and have an experience which will change the way I view light and the sky forever.
above: Horse Nebula
“It’s hard to imagine that the incandescent electric lamp was invented little more than 100 years ago, since then urbanization and poorly controlled lighting has created a severe light pollution problem in industrialized countries. If we don’t reverse this trend, the entire globe will soon be wrapped in a glowing envelope through which none of the magic of the Universe can be seen by the naked eye.” George Eslinger