The 2007 Mason Dixon Star Party was held on the grass runway and taxiway of the Shreveport North Airport near Wellsville, PA (near York and Harrisburg) from Wednesday, July 11, through Sunday, July 15. Given the dismal weather report for Wednesday, I showed up and set up my tent and scope Thursday, stayed two nights, and had my fill of camping for now and returned home Saturday (today).
I didn’t actually count, but there were at least 50-75 trailers/tents set up on each side of the taxiway, some with one or two people, some with an entire family. Across from me was a 24-inch “short tube” reflector (f/4.5) and a ladder to access the eyepiece about 8 feet or so off the ground. He was selling it for $6,000.00, quite a bargain. Now if I lived in the country where I could fully use such a device at home, I might have bought it.
Thursday night, I observed from dark till about 1am before getting tired and hitting the canvas. Even though it’s July, by about 4am I was shiverring! So, I went to my truck and ran the heater, snoozing till the sun came out and began warming the tent, where I finished my sleeping.
Friday night started out fully cloudy. I took a snooze and looked out one of the tent’s apertures at midnight and saw that the stars finally were out. So, I got out and observed till about 4am this time, before again getting the chills and heading to the heated truck for warmth.
I was observing with my Celestron C6-R, a 6-inch achromatic f/8 refractor on a CG-5 (goto) mount. (Having spent a year starhopping, I decided to relax and let the goto do it–and it made for a good tracking motor as well). Mostly I observed with a Meade QX 68-degree AFOV 36mm eyepiece, giving me 33.3x magnification and a 2.6 degree field of view (enough for all of the Pleiades and the whole coathanger asterism, just barely). When that didn’t suffice, I used a Zuhmell 15mm 50-degree AFOV eyepiece that came with an eyepiece kit–this was only helpful on the Ring Nebula, Wild Duck Cluster, and Jupiter.
I used a PowerTank 17, which held out both nights without needing a recharge, as well as providing power for my portable DVD player (portable–I was roughing it) in the daytime. Too bad my camera batteries didn’t last so long–I used 1 1/2 batteries a night ( I had two, and recharged one in a (1/4 mile away) bathroom outlet Friday afternoon). My camera is a Cannon Digital Rebel XTi, and for astrophotography, this time I used a 100mm–300mm zoom lens at F/5.6.
I also used 20×80 Zuhmell binoculars, 3.6 degree field of view. Of course, I also did some naked eye observing.
At first, on Thursday, I was disappointed because, while I could see the washed-out Milky Way, I could see no structure. However, after midnight, that changed–the Milky Way was higher in the sky (Cygnus close to zenith) and there were fewer lights from cars and houses in the surrounding area.
Friday, from midnight to 4am, the Milky Way was pretty nice–not like the photos from the Arizona desert, but still good. The Great Rift was obvious through Cygnus and Aquilla, as was the Great Cygnus Star Cloud and the Sagittarius Star Cloud.
It wasn’t till about 3am or so that Andromeda Galaxy rose high enough to be spotted with the naked eye; same with the Double Cluster. I’m pretty sure I saw M13 when I looked hard at the keystone of Hercules. At the end of the night, Pleiades, normally a winter cluster, was just rising–still in the horizon skyglow and impending sunrise, but still nice in the scope. Also, as Perseus rose, the Alpha Persei association became a brilliant piece broken off the Milky Way.
All 7 stars were visible in the little dipper, but four of them were faint.
Herman’s Cross (the Terabellum in Sagittarius) was a naked eye asterism.
Among the objects viewed:
M13, the old standard Hercules Globular Cluster.
M31, the Andromeda Galaxy–quality varied, depending on whether it was low or not, or whether dew was collecting (an off-and-on problem Friday night). With the 36mm lens, at its best, I clearly saw M32 and M110 in the same field of view. This may be the first time I’ve seen M110; it’s a tough one from my more usual observation locations.
M4, a globular cluster in Scorpius, was easy to see (it is almost not there in suburbia). M5, another globular in Ophiuchus, was brilliant.
M51, the whirlpool galaxy, wasn’t too spectacular–too low on the horizon. Still, I saw the satellite galaxy and part of a spiral wisp.
I saw one that the Goto hand controller called the “Pinwheel Galaxy”–I forget which one that is; it was a faint fuzzy ellipse, no detectable spiral arms.
The double cluster was brilliant in the 36mm lens–I counted 80 stars in the two clusters, not counting lots of outliers in the field of view. Among the individually-resolved stars I saw apparent nebulosity (no doubt an optical illusion).
The Wild Duck cluster really looked like a flying duck. Before, I thought it was called such because I could barely make out a “V” shape, like birds flying in formation.
I spent some time with binoculars just scanning the Milky Way (kind of a “spacewalk” experience) lying on the ground, as Cygnus was near the Zenith.
Very close to the Zenith was this interesting (no doubt chance occurrence) asterism–a string of stars about two degrees long (reminiscent of Kimble’s Cascade). It is a slightly-wandering line of 13 bright (in binoculars) stars (15 really, since two were doubles just split by binoculars). It was just northwest of Chi Cygni. In fact, look at the cross. With the naked eye in the Mason Dixon Star Party skies, picture the cross as upright, Deneb at the top. The next star down is Sadr, the crosspiece star. The next (faint) star down is not Chi Cygni, I forget what it is, but the variable star Chi Cygni (or is it Xi Cygni? the one that brightened to 3rd magnitude last year, normally 6 or 7) is right next to it, so close enough. In these dark skies, I could see three stars to the left (same orientation) of this forming an obtuse triangle. To the right of it, this time in binoculars, is the cascade.
Sadr, in fact, looks great in binoculars, being surrounded by many stars, Milky Way marbling, and the open cluster M29, all in the same field of view.
I also saw the Ring Nebula (M57), a definite white ring in the scope.
The Dumbbell Nebula (M27) was brilliant. It looked like two star-like bright points, each surrounded by a disk of nebulosity (like globular clusters), and the whole boxed in with a rectangle of fainter nebulosity, all a bluish-green color.
M8 (The Lagoon Nebula) was a cluster next to a nebula. M24 was an awful lot of stars. M39 in Cygnus was a fairly loose open cluster, all its stars being individually-resolved bright points.
A failure was the Helix Nebula–I could not see it at all. It may have been too low in the sky.
For planets, I observed Jupiter multiple times, and Mars briefly. Mars was just an orange disk with a dark blemish in the center, but with no other structure evident. Jupiter showed the four Galilean moons and one prominent brownish band, a less-prominent white band (brighter than the surrounding yellow surface), and two faint yellowish bands (darker than the surrounding surface). The innermost moon was very close when I looked, I estimate 1/8 a Jupiter-disk-diameter from Jupiter.
It was a good two nights, but I was ready to go home after the cold lumpy ground and all.
