CN FORUMS ARCHIVE Telescope Reviews: ED at Northwoods Starfest

I found out another reason "a dome is good!". I should beging to list them because this would probably be "reason 742" by now.

We headed to the Northwoods Starfest in Beaver Creek, Wisconsin. This is always a great party, wonderful hosts at the Hobbs Observatory, good food, etc, and usually outstanding weather.

This year though the weather was mixed, HOT during the day and on and off rainshowers and thunderstorms followed by clear skies. We arrived Friday and it was calm and wonderfully clear up until 2:00am when the sky clouded over. I pulled the shutter cord and locked up about 2:30 and retired to the tent. It began to rain and thunderstorm from 4:00am until about 8:00am. The wife had managed to position the mattress under the only leak in the tent, (which naturally had to be right over my face). I kept crawling into a tighter and tighter ball as the water invaded my space. Eventually it won and I crawled out of the tent to see what happened on the observing field. There were a few other groggy people up, shaking the water off of their plastic covers or trying to dry their observing chairs. I staggered over to the ED and the inside was dry as a bone. I kind wished I had slept in there.

The rest of Saturday was more of the same. It cleared up, got breezy, plastic bags flying all over the place as they came off equipment. Then the dark clouds would roll in. Everybody would scramble back to their equipment, tear it down, put it in their vehicles. The rain would pass, the sun would come out and start to bake the stuff in the cars, so they'd haul the stuff back out, set up, and the next isolated storm would come rolling in.

The whole time I'm just kind of sitting there thinkin', "A dome is good".

Saturday night we had an incredible lightning show from early evening until about 1:00am. Most of it passed south so we only had a few sprinkles but the light show was intense, like arc welders in the sky. It cleared and we had fantastically good skies until dawn. I really didn't want to go to bed because the sky was so fantastic... and my mattress was still wet...

In the morning we packed up and headed out. Since getting back from NSP I put new tires on the trailer and did some mods to make the weight and balance a little better and the trailer ran well out and back pulling out little observatory just fine.

We stopped for lunch and I was checking the trailer straps and this young guy walks up... ok... here we go again... any time I stop anyplace I have to take 20 minutes to explain that it isn't a nuclear warhead on the truck, it's an observatory and what that is, why it's good, what astronomy is all about...

So I'm checking the straps and waiting for the inquiry, 'What is that?' and sure enough he pauses a few feet away and says, "I gott a ask ya... What is that?"

I turn and say, "It's an observatory!", and with a wink add, "Haven't you ever seen one before?".

From a local ad on TV about limos and without missing a beat the kid comes back, "Never an observatory this smmmmmmall!".

We both had a laugh... and then I went into what an observatory is... why a dome is good, what astronomy is all about...

The photo is from "the morning after"... Satuday as the rains ended.

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Jim W Astro images