| Texas Star Party
2013 Loaded up the car and took off East. It took me two and a half days of 12 hrs. each to get to Ft. Davis, TX for the Texas Star Party. Stopped one night in Barstow and one in Demming, NM. Four of us from the club made it to Texas for a seven night stay. Here's Fred and Al in front of Fred's Sprinter. |
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Star Party 2013 Ron, Jeff and Fred. |
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Star Party 2013 This is where we all set up, on the lower field. All the RVs (Fred and Al) park there as well as most of the tent campers. |
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Star Party 2013 Here is my site right next door to Jeff. The dust was so fine that there was no way to keep it out when the wind came up in the afternoons. Had to shake out the sleeping bag every couple of days. One fantastic feature of this particular star party is that they run power lines out in a nice grid so that anyone who needs power has it available. |
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Star Party 2013 Al's observing site. |
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Star Party 2013 Here's Al all comfy in his RV. |
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Star Party 2013 Prude Ranch, near Ft. Davis, is where the star party is held. It's a working dude ranch with horses and everything. Right next door to the lower field is the Nurse's Station, just in case. |
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Star Party 2013 Right next door to the Nurse's Station is the snack bar. They would stay open to about 3:00 in the morning for snacks, coffee or hot chocolate. That was a nice touch. |
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Star Party 2013 In the same building as the snack bar there are showers and an indoor pool. In the afternoons when it's around 90 degrees outside, I would go swim laps for half an hour. The water was reeeealy cold, but felt great! Perfect for lowering your core temp. a bit. Then - all refreshed for dinner. |
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Star Party 2013 A couple of fellows head over to dinner in the main building. You could sign up for the meal plan and get lunch and dinner each day. Really convenient and the food was very good. Especially the desserts. |
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Star Party 2013 Jeff, Fred, me (Ron) and Zoltan Levay, (yes, that's his real name). He hung around with us for a few days. Zoltan has been with the Hubble program since the beginning and was a major player when it came time to process and prepare many of the Hubble pictures that have been released to the public. A very interesting guy! |
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Star Party 2013 Got Al to take this one for me. There's Annie, me, Fred, Jeff and a fellow who's name escapes me. He did have an interesting story to tell, though. He had just recently been elected (even though he is an American) as a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. He had the opportunity to go to London and visit their library. The librarian asked if he'd like to look at some books and when he came back he just plopped some books on the desk. They were original books by Galileo, Kepler and other greats. Most had original notes made by the author in the margins. He said it really helped that he could read Latin. That would be the trip of a lifetime. |
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Star Party 2013 Part of the inside of the dining room. |
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Star Party 2013 Jeff relaxing next door to my place. |
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Star Party 2013 I think it was on day three or so that we had some afternoon thunderstorms come through. Everyone either tore down their kits or covered them well to keep the rain off. You can't really tell in this picture, but it was coming down pretty good. |
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Star Party 2013 Dueling cameras. Jeff taking refuge under his tent. We had to do some modifications because the rain collected in the middle of the overhead tarp and threatened to drop a bunch of water right in the middle of his tent. |
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Star Party 2013 Just an old car that has seen better days. |
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Star Party 2013 It really looks like "Doc" from the Pixar movie "Cars." |
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Star Party 2013 These star parties are really a hoot sometimes. They attract the most unlikely characters - from all over the galaxy. |
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Star Party 2013 Here are some pictures of the upper field. That's where the really hard-core astronomers set up. There was rain forecast for the last couple night of the party so a lot of folks took off early. When it was full, it was standing room only and you had to be extra careful not to trip or bump into someone's rig at night. |
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Star Party 2013 Upper field. |
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Star Party 2013 Upper field. |
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Star Party 2013 Upper field. |
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Star Party 2013 Upper field. |
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Star Party 2013 Upper field. |
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Star Party 2013 Upper field. |
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Star Party 2013 This one of the biggest private telescopes I've ever seen. I think it looks more like a cannon than a telescope :) |
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