Telescope Reviews: Cherry Springs State park, PA, ~ darksite. wow!!

This time around I spent a week at Cherry Springs State Park.

Friday night, the first night of the Black Forest Star Party, began very well, then some clouds arrived for a time. However, as the night unfolded, the transparency became phenomenal. An SQM reading of 21.71 was acheived on Saturday morning.

A few of the highlights were seeing the rich open cluster NGC 7789 fill the 100 degree AFOV of one of the 21mm Tele Vue Ethos prototypes through Dr. Elliott McKinley's 20" f/5 Obsession, and seeing three components of Einstein's Cross, vivid colors in M27 (pink in the periphery and light green in the "apple core"), and many galaxies, most notably NGC 891 and M33, in a spectacular fashion through John Vogt's 32" ATM Dob. Early that evening, I observed comet 2006 W3 (Christensen), along with a number of other objects, through my friend Tony Donnangelo's 20" Starmaster Sky Tracker Dob. John Homka's 18.5" (yes, 18.5") ATM Dob, which was right next to me and was set up for low power binoviewing, produced some incredible views of M31 and especially M42. I saw an unmistakable reddish hue in the outer parts of the center of the nebula, along with pale blues and greens. B33 was visible through Elliott's 20" in the early morning. Also notable was the fact that the very elusive zodiacal band, along with the gegenschein and the zodiacal light, was fairly easy to see that morning.

Saturday night may not have been ultimately quite as transparent but was still very good indeed. The launch of a NASA Black Brant XII Sounding Rocket carrying the Charged Aerosol Release Experiment (CARE), which was designed to produce an artificial noticulent cloud, was spellbinding. I was able to see some detail during a fine ISS pass that I tracked with my 101mm Tele Vue refractor and 13mm Tele Vue Ethos. John Homka used a color Mallincam and a small, enclosed color monitor to obtain some incredible images of M8, M16, M17, and M20, and, later in the night, images of a number of galaxies and nebulae such as M33 and NGC 1514.

I spent some time "scope-hopping" that night and had the chance to look through a 160mm TEC apochromat, an 18" Obsession Ultra-Compact Dob, a 20" Starmaster, a 20" Obsession, and an 18" Obsession. One of the objects that I saw through the 18" was SN 2009ig in NGC 1015, which we were unable to log earlier in the week due to cloudy late night skies.

Some of the photos that I took during the week are posted in the Black Forest Star Party thread beginning here.

Dave Mitsky

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Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.