On January 11-13 I hosted the 4th annual Frozen Moose Star Party at my in-laws' farm in Potter County, Pennsylvania. Although this year's attendance was a little sparse, we managed a great fun-filled weekend! We arrived Friday afternoon with enough daylight left to get our telescopes set up in spite of the overcast sky.
Bringing the Wii along turned out to be a great idea, what with the cloudy sky socking us in on Friday evening. After a pizza dinner brought back from the Gold General Store, we were ready for some jammin' on the Wii. Bowling was fun, albeit humiliating. (I need to figure out how to change the way they oil the lanes!) But Guitar Hero Rocked! Lots of Foghat, Kiss, and Pat Benatar played to...imperfection! At least we didn't get booed off the stage too often!
Saturday morning brought us more clouds, but the online Clear Sky Clock was starting to give us some hope. We scrambled up some eggs for breakfast and then got ready for geocaching! (If you're not familiar with geocaching, it involves using a portable GPS to search for caches or little treasures hidden away by other geocachers.)
First target: the only triple continental divide east of the Mississippi! Fortunately, this was only about a mile away from the Farm. There are a few signs in maybe a 1 square mile area that mark the starting points for three major rivers: the Allegany, the Genessee, and the Susquehanna. We made a point of taking a picture at each. Our first cache was supposedly right at the official point of the triple divide. We parked about a 1/4 mile away and, using Matt's trusty GPS, hiked our way right to a little sign sticking out of the ground marking the Triple Divide. From there, the actual geocache -- a small ammunition box -- was an easy find in a bramble bush (a clue for finding the cache advised us not get stuck looking for the cache). [Incidentally, I've posted about 40 photos from the weekend on my photobucket site: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v377/robisch/Frozen%20Moose%2008/ .]
Our next geocache was by a small nearby lake called Rose Lake. After parking, we were required to hike our way around to the opposite side of the lake in search of the exact coordinates. Once again, Matt led us right to the spot and we scored another cache! We saw a couple of beaver damns and several trees that beavers had obviously been chomping upon. We returned to the farm in mid-afternoon and took a few minutes to fly an RC helicopter that Lincoln and I got for Christmas. This actually went remarkably well for several flights before an unfortunate landing that involved a wood pile in the backyard. One of the blades hit it, and that was the end of our flying!
Well, it was time for chili anyway! This year we had it spiced up with some Weed Killer sauce that I brought. Mmmmm! And it kept us warm all night!
Speaking of night, as the sun was setting the clouds were departing, as if on queue. By dark, it was ABSOLUTELY CLEAR!!! So Matt and I got to work. We started with Mars in Matt's 10", which showed a fair amount of detail in brief instances of clearer seeing. I began with the wonderful Comet Holmes in Perseus. I initially picked it out naked eye, and it looked reminiscent of the Andromeda Galaxy, only perhaps larger. Moving to my 7x50 binoculars, it was fantastic! Reminded me of a huge beachball. Probably my favorite view of the night!
Next came Comet Tuttle in Cetus. It was not quite a naked eye object, possibly because of a slight glow in that part of the sky from the setting crescent moon. In the binoculars it was pretty easy. Small but fairly bright; diffuse.
At 7:10pm we witnessed an iridium satellite flare of about -2 magnitude. A beautiful, slow event! Maybe THIS was my favorite view of the night! It dropped out of the sky a little to the right of Orion.
NGC 1514 - pn Taurus. The 10th magnitude central star was easily visible in this planetary nebula. Nebulocity was large and faint. My Ultrablock and OIII filters did not help greatly with the view. Best at 50x and unfiltered.
Unfortunately, the cold sometimes discourages one from taking adequate notes, and it was at this point that I neglected to keep up my log book. I made failed attempts at a couple of galaxies in Taurus and Eridanus, I think. I did view the Orion Nebula later, but that was as high humidity in the air, and perhaps a bit of frost on my telescope's corrector plate, were beginning to effect the view.
The other highlight of the night, for me, was taking a break to give my son a little nake eye tour of the sky. We laid on the ground side-by-side and I used Matt's green laser pointer to show various constellations and Comet Holmes to Lincoln. We also searched for what Linc dubbed the Squid constellation last year, but on this night he wasn't sure if he'd found the same squid. I think Lincoln really enjoyed this part of the night, and so did I!
As Matt indicated, we were back inside by about midnight and soon hit the sack. Sunday morning involved mainly packing up to head home, but we also took a second to snap some more pictures outside, including the obligatory Moose group photo!
It was a shame that a few of the Frozen Moose Star Party regulars were unable to make it this year, but we'll be back again next winter! See you then!
-Ron
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