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Stellafane 2006

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Read my report on the event.

Stellafane 2006
This year's event started the day we left in 2005. We always start talking about what it will be like the following year, and what we'll do when it comes. Packing was done Thursday night, and we left Friday morning arriving by about 11:30. We set up camp... a 2-story tent (not really, but it is kind of big), and a screen-tent for eating & cooking. We made it over to see the new Flander's Pavillion (quite large) and did a little mirror-grinding with the kids. We brought lots of great food: bar-b-que pulled pork, 2 pork tenderloins, a massive beef filet tenderloin, chicken ala something, and plenty of breakfast food including terrifice fresh blueberry pancakes with Mike's homemade maple syrup. He also brought basil, tomatoes, chives and other stuff from his garden. He's serious about this food stuff. Needless to say, we were probably the best fed conventioners on-site, the fancy bed & breakfast folks included.

We got a little rain on Saturday afternoon... enough to wet the ground up, but not too bad. Before it got dark, we set up the 20" on the North end of Breezy Hill. We had a great night observing. I hit a lot of the highlights such as M57 (ring) , M27 (dumbell), M13 (hercules cluster), M94, The Veil, M33 (the pinwheel), M31 (andromeda galaxy), M16 (eagle), M17 (swan), M11 (wild-duck) M8, and a bunch of ngc objects on the relatively bright-side. I do enjoy showing the general public these showcase objects... as long as there aren't too many people... I like to look too. I stayed up until around 2:00 a.m. or so. The kids slept next to the scope, and we tucked them in the tent later. They really love it... we saw lots of meteors. Dylan has been talking about the big one ever since. I missed it.

The swap tables turned up nothing for me. I find overpriced relics. I have found good buys before, but there is a lot of junk. Thank God for Astromart. Saturday morning breakfast was the blueberry pancakes (wow were they good). Dylan (now 8) cooked a few by himself... and ate a few too. Afterwards we attempted to find a good spot on the Black River to fish. No luck. We ended up with container of worms, and a fun drive instead. Driving across a dam a few miles away was really cool... we were up high and the kids loved it. When we got back, we made our way over to Breezy Hill to see the telescopes set up. There were some nice telescopes, but my impression is that the showing was way down numerically... I could be wrong. It just looked smaller by like 20%. And not that we have seen or know everthing, but it's hard to be innovative. Doesn't life seem like that in general? So many things have been done. Still, a few tips gleaned and some well-made telescopes is a good reason to come up to Stellafane. Somebody will invent the next greatest thing. Particularly stunning were the binocular telescope & observing chair, the 6" refractor, the single-tubed binocular newtonian, Norm Fullum's Newtonian, and the canoe-build scope.

Saturday dinner, filet mignon... a couple for everybody. Baked potato, some pasta with some italian spice olive oil. I don't know, but it was good. We did go to the Saturday night program. I was a little disappointed it was held in the new Flander's Pavillion (there was a threat of bad weather that never materialized). We left after the kid's raffle. We wanted to take it easy on the kids. I didn't even get to see the winners of the competition (the best part of the program for me), but I know they'll show it on the Stellafane website soon.

That night featured clouds until 11:00 or so, and then it was 50% clouds/50% clear viewing for a good part of the night. After a while I went to sleep. Got up around 3:00 and had Breezy Hill to myself. I observed until dawn.

In general, there are fewer observers than years prior. The forecast was apparently not certain, but to be sure Friday night was very good and Saturday night had viewing if you were patient to dodge the usually 1/2 clouded sky. Still... where were the telescopes and observers? One guy showed up near my scope with a small party and was a little upset because he needed a telescope to observe and everything was covered. He said "folks drive a long way, and expect to observe." Where was his telescope? I love sharing the view, but people expect Disney entertainment. One trend is that people have moved to Stellafane East, and there is not a realistically-sized area to observe. People don't bring their scopes to Stellafane for all the other activites. Still the convention could make observing a little more friendly by levelling a few spots on the site, or something. Maybe that would encourage more observers? I'm not sure, but I think most people would say the end-goal of making a telescope is observing with it... at least a little. Just my thoughts.

It was a very good year. I had a great time with my son, a great time meeting old and new friends. The observing was very nice, and the telescopes on Breezy Hill were great. Can't wait until next year.

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