I was up at Wildcat State Park in Wisconsin this past weekend for an astronomy star party with my astronomy club. Unlike the last time I ventured to Wildcat this time was truly amazing. We had 3 days of perfect weather in succession, no really, I’m serious. It was partly cloudy during the day and then when night came around all of the cumulous clouds burned away and exposed the Milky Way and the heavens above in all it’s glory. I still can’t get over how much the Milky Way looks like a cloud at first sight. Let me just say now, I’ve only visually seen the Milky Way a handful of times so seeing it was quite exciting let alone getting to see it with my telescope for the first time. The transparency on each night wasn’t that high but it was actually highly usable and didn’t detract at all from all of the fun or the massive number of objects that we saw.


I arrived on Friday afternoon and got my tent set up and unpacked my telescope just in time for the observing that night, though I was getting worried that I was going to be late. The observing the first night was very dewy but clear. There weren’t any clouds to cause any problems and most objects were crisp and clear. I stayed up till about 2:30 am that night.


The second day I slept in, shocker ahe? The weather held out most of the day though it did rain for a few moments in the afternoon, nothing major. When I uncovered my telescope that morning I was greeted with some massive dewing on my primary mirror, it was like Lake Michigan under the cover. About 40 minutes later after using the fan and tipping it on side to get some air circulation it was clear. The same thing happened the next night as well despite me tipping the scope and not putting other parts inside the sphere at night. I need to figure out how to lessen this pooling as water spots always result after a good dewing. I know that spots don’t excessively effect viewing but enough of them will degrade the image somewhat.


Anyhow, our public observing session was on Saturday night and some people were worried that the public was going to be there late. As an amateur astronomer we couldn’t help think that with all of these clear skies people would want to stay and do some viewing. After some explanation it was clear that they (the public) wouldn’t last long, not everyone was as excited about clear skies as astronomers. All in all I think the public went great, I had about 40-50 visitors to my telescope and I know that not everyone stopped at my spot. I was targeting the Dumbbell Nebula in Vulpecula near Cygnus the Swan in the Summer Triangle (Deneb, Vega, and Altair). I can’t tell you how many times I made the exploding hand gesture to explain they were looking at the remnant of an exploding star and they were seeing the left over gases from that explosion. Twas no matter though as once they looked through the eyepiece they were in awe over the view, heck I was as well. The details and clarity were amazing even without a nebula filter. Earlier that day I had borrowed a 2” eyepiece from another club member to use during the star party. The last thing I’m going to do is put an expensive eyepiece in and have someone reach up and put their fingers on the lens or better yet cram their glasses into it, been there done that and almost had the heart attack to accompany it. Anyhow, the public went great and everyone enjoyed themselves. By a little past 10 pm everyone had cleared out and we were left to our own devices to explore the heavens above. I was up until around 3 am that evening. And you guessed it, I slept in again that next morning … shocker.


The final night of observing I was determined to make it until Venus rose at around 4 am. I was getting jabs from my fellow observers for not being able to keep up with the big boys. They were right on one hand because I was dead tired, but on the other hand I really wanted to see everything I could while I was there. It’s not like I often get the opportunity to observe in truly clear skies. Next time I definitely need to try to get some afternoon naps in next time I go observing so I can make it through the night. Anyhow, we nearly called it a night early because of high flying cirrus clouds but that would have been a bit premature as the skies cleared and we had some amazing viewing, steady skies, and little to no dew. I made it through the night, saw Venus rise, and then immediately tore my telescope apart and put it into the car. It was supposed to rain later in the morning and I knew I was going to be asleep.


Throughout the weekend observing festivities we were greeted with many Perseid Meteors. There were quite a few really bright momentary arcs of fire across in the sky and many of these were extremely colorful. From light green to vibrant yellow they were quite breathtaking. Quite a few lit up the sky and ground near us as well, it was quite extraordinary. We were also able to catch an extremely bright (-8.5, the more negative the brighter it is) Iridium Flare. This thing was brighter than Venus rising in the morning. Anyhow, the short of it is that natures fireworks were out in full force this weekend.


In between observing I managed a trip to La Crosse Wisconsin, my first visit to Minnesota (I’m not even kidding), a local pie shop in Wilton called Pies are Square (guess what shape the pies are?), a few drives in the country (I didn’t get lost honest), and visit to Grandad Bluff, and I even managed to get some sleep. Next time around I want to get some canoeing in and visit a few more local points of interest.


I’ll be posting my observing log and comments shortly. It’s taking me a while to put it together because I ran into a bit of trouble with Starry Night Pro. It kept crashing without saving my planner log with all of the objects I viewed. Anyhow, after a few tries I was able to compile a listing of about 60% of the objects we saw. I wasn’t able to remember all of them, plus a lot of times I just walked up to another telescope to see what was being viewed and don’t remember what it was. No matter how you cut it though the viewing was fantastic, the people were great, and my new telescope performed amazingly. I wanted to thank everyone that was up there for making the trip memorable and interesting. I’m definitely looking forward to returning next year and who knows, maybe even sooner.