5 replies to this topic

[John Miele]

Thinking of going to this next week. Does anyone know how dark the skies are...it seems a little too close to a major city (Indianapolis) to have really dark skies...but maybe not.

 

Thanks!

 

John

 

https://www.indianas....com/starparty/

[City Kid]

The only time I've been to the Indiana Family Star Party was in 2009. I can't give you any hard numbers to quantify the darkness but if the only reason you are considering going is dark skies I would say don't. It was dark enough to see the Milky Way and that's about it. For Indiana the skies are relatively dark but that isn't saying much. However this is a very well run star party and really is family oriented. I took my grandson and we had a great time. The only reason I haven't been back is it usually takes place at the same time as the Nebraska Star Party. 

[John Miele]

Thanks! That is helpful. I have a couple different locations to consider for that same week and am trying to down select. It does look like a fun event event and a nice location, even if skies are not super dark.

[Nankins]

The skies are bad if you live in a B4 area. I would rank the skies as a high B5 at best. Milky Way is barely visible, but overall the event is really fun. The 28" views will make up for not having dark skies. I went last year and am packing to go with my mom and camp there tonight through Sunday morning. We're excited even if it rains. If you are there/go, I'll be the one with a black Apertura AD10 and a super crude white poster board dew shield. But I will also be wandering the field and observatory. Might put my Mars map in the raffle or auction. We chose not to do the full event due to having other things going on, being super bored during the days when nothing is going on, livestock, and also the storms. Looks like tonight might have some openings though.

[Nankins]

Last night we got about 3 hours or so of observing time. I used nearly 2 of those hours to observe. Despite the approaching thunderstorm in the west giving us a light show and light clouds, the observing turned out fairly well.

[Nankins]

The 2024 IFSP was a lot of fun. There weren't as many people this year, possibly in part due to the high number of other star parties going on this week. Saturday was supposed to be really nice however the smoke and some light clouds all but destroyed transparency. I fought dew on my eyepieces that night so my little session with my reflector quickly went down the drain. The dew shield I made for the scope worked nicely. The one for the finderscope however needs some adjusting. Friday night I mostly hung out with a friend who came to see what was going on. After showing him a few things through my telescope we went and visited a 20" Obsession near me. I walked the observing field with him early in the evening just to show him the number and variety of telescopes that were out there. The atmosphere conditions were horrible but we did manage to view Mizar and Alcor in both my 10" and the 20" before I asked about the Cat's Eye Nebula. The owner tried to find it but the conditions were just too bad. Saturday morning's Astro Quiz was a lot of fun. Some of the questions were hard! I did ok. There were speakers in the afternoon. The first speaker was a Purdue grad student doing research in galaxy clusters, galaxy cluster formation, and proto galaxy clusters. The second was a Purdue undergrad working on a team doing supernova research and trying to find better ways of documenting stars before and after they go supernova in order to better predict explosions and learn more about supernovae. He talk about the Vera Rubin telescope and also about the ReFITT program his group runs that is a partnership between amateur astronomers and professionals so that there is better documentation of supernovae in the northern hemisphere, as well as a way of gathering data during the Rubin telescope's turn around time of 3 days. They already have 2 amateurs partnering with them plus their own telescope. I didn't attend the last speaker because I wasn't feeling good, but it was the Lowell Observatory's historian who came and talked about the Slipher brothers, who grew up not far from Camp Cullom and Prairie Grass Observatory, in Mulberry, IN. That evening there was a raffle (Won a Astromania 2" Moon filter; much better than what I originally had), a silent auction in which there was only 1 item, and an auction with only 2 items. Our club's secretary, who joined last summer, went home with his first telescope from that auction. There was a Prairie Walk which I didn't go on. After night fell I was going to hang out with my scope for a bit, but while waiting for it to get dark enough for it to observe visually I went to the observing field and hung out with an astrophotographer in my club while he got his scope ready to image. It was interesting to watch polar alignment, etc. I also learned about what can happen when the mount and camera isn't anywhere near the home WiFi, plus having issues with dew! I was actually going to watch the Livestream from the Link Observatory but got caught up watching the astrophotographer! I stepped away to check my scope and try a little observing but that's when I discovered the dew issues. I went back over and this guy had everything ready and was very close to imaging. Target for him was near Deneb. Then the mount had trouble syncing on Deneb. To cap it off, he went to plug in his computer and the worst happened.... His mount suddenly disconnected from the electricity! Very good lesson for me in what can go wrong at the worst of times in amateur astrophotography. I went back to my scope and messed around with placing caps on eyepieces, finderscope, etc when not in use but the dew still occured very quickly after taking caps off so I couldn't find anything. I ended up walking to the observatory with my mom and showing her M27 through their giant binos. That was neat despite the conditions. We walked over to the 28" StarMaster which was queued up on M57 and had a line. M57 was impressive. I didn't see as much internal detail but there was some nice outer structure visible. Looking at it in the 28" is similar to getting a very good look under fairly dark skies at the Helix Nebula in a 10". In fact better even than the Helix. Someone asked if we had seen the Double Double in Lyra through the 16" that was running yet, and we hadn't so we wandered over there and took a good look. I can't remember the last time I even saw all 4 stars, so that was a treat. We headed back to the 28" which now had no line, so I asked for the Cat's Eye Nebula. The operator lined it up for us, no filter. I had never seen it due to always having issues with finding the area in my dob. The Cat's Eye was the highlight of the week for me. Even though I sort of knew what to expect I didn't fully expect as much detail as there was. The central star could be held in averted vision and was visible now and then with direct vision. The nebula appeared a little big and structures. I could just make out slight differences between the lobes. I did see a slightly greenish tinge. My mom apparently saw blue. The operator put in the OIII filter and suddenly there was a halo. This halo may have been fog. Otherwise the view didn't change much between the filtered view and the unfiltered view. After the Cat's Eye came M27. It unfortunately was being affected by the bad conditions and didn't look that much different from the view in the 16" a little earlier (we had looked at it in the 16" before heading to the 28"). Just 2 separated lobes with a central star. That's one I certainly can say I've had better views of. After the 28" we headed back to the 16" for Saturn. It was interesting seeing the nearly edge-on rings, and Titan, Rhea, and Tethys all lined up on the right side of the view. It was actually a pretty decent view given Saturn's altitude and the atmosphere conditions. After that we headed back to our tents and bed.