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Stellafane 2009

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Read my report on the event.

Stellafane 2009
My son, Dylan, and I have been anticipating our return to Stellafane since we last attended in 2006. We were not able to attend the last two years because of more important things, but we had cleared our calendar for the 2009 convention. We did pack a lot for the trip. We cleared out the seats in our mini-van, and filled it will telescopes, tents, sleeping bags, stoves, groceries, and left just enough room to squeeze the consumers of all this madness.

This would be a unique Stellafane for 2 reasons: 1) There was an excellent weather forecast for the entire event which was fully realized 2) It would be scheduled to begin on a last quarter moon. Oh, the irony. Still, as we headed up to Vermont, we drove a good bit of the way in light rain wondering if as weather front that stalled longer than forecast would stall even longer. But it cleared out beautifully, and we enjoyed 3 nights of exhausting observing conditions.

Upon arrival we setup our tent, and screened-in porch and got a little order to the madness of our “stuff”. Then we went and setup our telescopes on McGregor hill for viewing that night. After heading back to the tent for hamburgers, corn and baked beans (Dylan is beginning to scare me on how much he can eat) we headed back to the hill to do some observing. We had a great time, and of everything we observed Jupiter in both the 20” and 8” really stick out in my mind due to the really good seeing. We also saw Neptune & Uranus and caught a glimpse of Neptune in the Schupmann. Viewing through the Schupmann was a teaser... It looked as if it were pointing at Jupiter, but alas it was fixed on Neptune only 3 degrees away. Still, we glimpsed the outermost of the planets of our Solar System (did I hear somebody say ‘Bring back Pluto?’). We went back a little after midnight and slept a few hours.

Friday was filling up more in terms of attendees, but still pretty manageable. We ended up cooking breakfast onsite: pancakes, bacon and eggs. During the day, however, we spent a little time driving around local towns in VT and NH. We watched what appeared to be a training facility for hang-gliding and para-sailing on RT 11 in NH as the trainees jumped off of a good-sized hill and glided for a few hundred yards. I don’t know what’s involved in trying that, but it really looks fun.

Now to one of the main reasons I was looking forward to Stellafane: Dylan and I made a really nice 8” telescope including the mirror, and we had entered it into the optical competition. So we had to move all of our equipment (yes, the 20” too) to Breezy Hill. We setup on the South end, since it’s far less crowded and the sky visibility is much better. Once it got dark, the testing started. The bad news is that it takes a long time for the judges to make their rounds. The worse news is I was not able to fix my collimation in my secondary as I left my toolset including allen wrenches. Of course, everybody had a set when it was too late for me to do anything... but suffice it to say that we were not in on the final round of testing. I was ok with it, but I felt bad for Dylan since I had to coax him into entering it. I think it has a real chance to win a prize with proper collimation. We still had a great time observing that night. A highlight was spending time observing with a small group including Bob Midiri from PA. He’s a great guy, and we had a good time observing over the next few nights trading views, eyepieces, and just enjoying the time under the sky with everybody that was there. Dylan is a pretty good observing buddy. He loses energy before I do, but then again, he’s only 11. He did meet a friend, Alex, and on this Friday night they both crashed in their sleeping bags next to the telescope.

Saturday morning began at the swap tables. I sold an aluminum tube, an 8” mirror, a 2.14 secondary and holder, some tube rings, and ended up buying a 2” TeleVue OIII filter, and a 6” mirror. I think I will put together a small telescope for my daughter, Kaitlyn, with the 6”. People that bought my stuff got good deals, and I got good deals. I will not publish names or prices to protect the innocent.

Saturday afternoon on Breezy Hill was a great time. There was an awesome 28” telescope sporting a Kennedy mirror of about F3.6 or so. It appeared to be mostly all-aluminum. The owner’s name was Stephen from Ontario, I believe. There was an interesting telescope made of a rounded carbon-fiber “ball” for the primary, and a secondary which slid up & down the two-pole tube structure. Nice design. A number of fork-mounted instruments were displayed. One of my favorites was a 12” or so uber-light instrument which fit into a small wooden case. It appeared to be a Bob Royce conical primary, and the entire scope was extremely compact with a single pole for the “tube” structure. The owner was flying to Australia after the convention, and taking his travel scope with him. Jeff Parenteau displayed two nice telescopes that both took first place in the optical categories for 10” and under, and over 10”. Anyway, suffice it to say there were some really remarkable telescopes (images above) on display.

Dylan was very fortunate to have won the grand prize in the kid’s raffle on Saturday night. The Springfield Telescope Makers donated an 8” mirror grinding kit to him with the expectation that he must build a telescope and display it. He graciously received it in front of the large crowd. We’ll probably work it this winter at Dick Parker’s. We have worked quite a few 8” mirrors lately.

Saturday night was clear again, not as transparent, but still clear and with good seeing again. Al Nagler brought a prototype of the new 21mm Ethos with 100 degree FOV to the hill and we viewed a number of objects with it on the 28” f3.6 telescope. The views were fantastic. Using a coma corrector, the views were sharp to the edge. A new breakthrough is occurring in mirror design with the short f-ratio mirrors. The 28” f3.6 has almost the exact same focal length as my 20” f5.2. I would gladly trade. Alas, I am not in the market for $600 - $800 eyepieces now. I must enjoy then while others share the view. We bagged it at about 2 a.m. for another late night (early morning) and packed up and headed home the next day.

So glad we were able to have such fine weather (albeit hot during the day) and a great convention. We met a lot of great people... most were kind. I won’t report on the others. I really enjoy taking Dylan on these trips. We look forward to next year, and expect that Dylan will bring a telescope to display.

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