Arrived late in the morning and got all set up before it got too hot. The field in the picture just beyond the telescope would be completely full by the next evening. In the meantime, what a great sunset view of Mt. Shasta!

Andy was one of my next door neighbors.

There's Steve with Andy...

Took a nice nap in the shade of my cargo van. When I woke up, there was Bill. He had set up a home-made solar telescope. This is the back of the projection box (the screen). Just in front of the blue tent in the distance is a mirror that projects the sun into the screen.

Here's Bill with his solar scope. He rigged up a motor for the mirror so that it can track the sun and keep it centered on the screen in the distance. It worked really well. Very cool!

Steve had a handful of home-made telescopes with him on this trip. This is one of them. He also likes to build kayaks. This one was built from the scraps of one of his kayaks. Beautiful finish and it's got a great mirror in it for some fabulous views.

Here's Bills' screen just in front of my rig.

Bill on the left getting set up with Steve's four telescopes to the right.

Bill setting up. This year the temperatures were in the 90s, so most guys waited until the sun was setting before they set up their gear on the first night. The last two days of the star party were over 100. Ouch!

Steve and his scopes in front of his RV

Steve's binocular telescope aimed at my van.

Gotta get at least one shot of me to prove that I was there :)

Once the sun started to set the temps dropped rapidly, but the nights were very pleasant. This year the night skies were exceptional. I was able to find around 25 objects on the Herschel 400 list (very faint objects) on each of the five nights. In fact, I found 4 galaxies that were mag -13. I didn't think my 9.25" scope was capable of seeing that faint, but the skies were dark enough for just that. So - yay!

Our good friend, Annie made it for a couple of days before heading back home.

Annie's SO, Al, He's all set to go for the night.

Parked under my neighbor's tent trying to stay cool (which was impossible). Rod and Frank were both ex-military so we had lots of stories to swap.

My new scope. Just kidding - it's good to have a good fantasy life :)

Bill being silly.

Neighbor, Frank

An old friend, Kirk made it to GSSP this year. It was his first time and I think he had a pretty good time. Nice to see him again.

Steve and Bill enjoying the last sunset of GSSP 2024

Another Successful Golden State Star Party.

Another incredible sunset!

View the full photo album collection from Rod.