York County Star Party with Keith Evans, July 27-28.

I must say that I really enjoyed my very first regional star party, and i hope to repeat that experience again some time.

The site was along side the runway on a grass strip airfield. There was a great food vendor, and about 20 other observers set up. Our shelter plan was to empty the back of the Grand Cherokee for me to sleep in the back. Keith wanted to sleep in the front passenger seat.

I spoke to one attendee who towed a 13′ Scamp behind his car. I thought that was very neat, and was determined to look into getting one.

JoAnn Shapiro, a HAL member that I had just met a week before at breakfast with Marty Cohen was there.

I brought my Meade LX850 (12″ f/8), and was equipped for visual observing. I saw many targets during the course of the night, and I was definitely able to see more detail than at HAL’s Alpha Ridge. With M31, for instance, I was able to see not only the fuzzy central disk blob, I was able to clearly see on spiral arm and dust lane in front of it.

We observed until about 0245, at which time high clouds started to move in, and we were too tired to go any more, so we shut down to get some rest. I was too tired to clear some room in the back of the Grand Cherokee, so I put my sleeping gear on the ground a crashed.

Waking up at 0630 was a wild scene. I was soaked from the dew, roosters were crowing, and cows were mooing.

Breakfast was good. I would like to do this again.

© James R. Johnson, 2021.
jim@jrjohnson.net