Telescope Reviews: Oregon Star Party

We're looking forward to OSP again this year.

I thought that I'd jump in regarding power. We bought our motorhome with star parties in mind about 10 years ago. At the time we bought it, I had it set up with 4 golf cart batteries that give us about 440ah power. When you can run a generator, they'd charge up pretty quickly after a night's imaging. There was a run of years a while ago where the Forest Service banned generator use due to fire conditions. With the above setup and no ability to charge, we were getting about 4 nights of imaging.

3 or 4 years ago, I changed my schedule so that I could spent more time at each of the star parties that we attend. In the case of OSP, I like to arrive no later than the Saturday ahead of the event (and possibly a few days even earlier than that if the weather and my work schedule look good).

To deal with the extended time and the possibilty of generator bans, I added solar charging to the motorhome. I've got 390 watts of panels on the roof, with the same bank of batteries. With this setup, I can run indefinitely - and even let the kids use their laptops and watch movies during the day. I find that I need about 100ah from the solar panels. This is with two laptops, an ST-10 and a guide camera. I also have 3 small deep cycle batteries that power several mounts. I charge these daily from the motorhome.

My motorhome's generator is pretty quiet, and it never bothered me before. But I have to say that solar is really easy to get used to. I love not having to use the generator. The only time I ever start it now is if we want to use the microwave (so maybe 10 to 15 minutes a day when not banned).

Jeff, regarding your questions about camping and such, I think that you will be quite happy with the arrangement. Early arrival is no problem. By Monday, there will be quite a few people up there (including me). Last year, there were people on site a full two weeks early. You will have plenty of space to set up your imaging and observing rigs. I do both visual and imaging as well.

For the last few years, I have been setting up camp near the loop, on the east side of the road. I have a few friends that set up in the imaging area and I've been spending quite a bit of time there. This year I think that I've going to go ahead and set up there.

Jeff, if you want to set up in the imaging area as well, it's on the south side of the entry road, just past the turn off to the loop. By Monday, there will likely be a couple of motorhomes and trailers there already.

This will be the 25th anniversary of OSP. We've been regulars since 2001 and are really looking forward to it.

Here's a picture of our site from 2010, before it got busy (or after most people left; I stayed late that year). It seems that all of my site pictures from 2011 were taken on one of the thunderstorm nights.

-Wade