Posts Made By: Don Wyman

Picked this up from Dave Kriege at Obsession last Thursday. Had first light last night. Images were excellent.

Who's heading to Astrofest next weekend?

Don Wyman
NEWSTAR (NorthEast Wis. Stargazers)

It saddens me to say that I was not very pleased with the way things were run at Astrofest this year. On Thursday afternoon they didn't even have the registration packets. That would have been bad enough but when they did come they consisted of a manilla envelope with one sheet of perforated paper in it along with an ID badge holder (some didn't include this necessary item). All that was on the paper was your ID to be torn off and a raffle entry to be likewise removed. That comprised the entire contents of the packet. No brocures, catalogs or even a token printout of the upcoming weekend's events. Pitiful. One fellow was asked to return his badge holder so they could use it next year.

All the Portapotties were at the end of one central aisle. Those that weren't near it had a long hike for relief. On the upside, they had hand sanitizers in each and a handwashing module on one end. Luckily we were located near the facilities.

After some time I finally located some schedules. First thing I checked was the raffle time for Saturday night. No specific time was set aside from it being after the last speaker. I was told by someone that it was announced during the day that the raffle had been changed
to 6:15. I never heard it. We arrived early only to find that they were still feeding
people. At 6:22 it was announced that the raffle would begin in 5 or 10 minutes. In fact it didn't start until 20 minutes later at 6:42PM. The raffle itself was very poorly executed and several times a name was drawn and announced before they told us what the prize was. A
Coronado PST came up, a name was drawn and no one claimed it. Rather than draw another name right away, the PST was set aside and forgotten about for 20 minutes or so. Finally they brought it out and raffled it off. The prizes aside from the PST were cheap. No Meade or Televue eyepieces, no Lumicon nebula filters, jusdt calendars and software you never heard of.

Add it all up and it was the worst Astrofest I've attended as far as the way it was run. Certainly it was great to see old friends and swap tall tales but that aside the whole event was a bust. As a result a number of us from a couple of Wisconsin clubs got together
and decided to consider going somewhere else next year. I'm open to suggestions, but one event that I'm considering is the Illinois Dark Skies Star Party northwest of Springfield. It's held on a new moon weekend, this year on October 6-9.

This event is held at Jim Edgar Panther Creek - State Fish & Wildlife Area 25 miles NW of Springfield, Ill. A number of us are already familiar with this site. We went there to observe the Annular Eclipse of the Sun in 1994. I took my 20" dob there and recall thatthe observing was very good. You can check it out here:

http://www.sas-sky.org/main.htm

I've decided that I'm mostly interested in a good observing site which Astrofest is most derfinitely not. Panther Creek is another 2 hours drive. That may be a big consideration for many. Just something to think about.

Just for the record, I have attended all but 4 Astrofests starting with Astrofest II at Racine, Wisconsin. It has been a trip I've looked forward to for two decades. I will not be returning. Neither will a dozen or two of my friends.

Don Wyman
President of NEWSTAR (Northeast Wisconsin Stargazers)

Mike Norris said:

Hi Mr. Wyman,
Do you, or any others know what faclities are there?
I looked on their site and was wondering if I could shower? (didn't see it mentioned).
I can go P anywhere but, that fresh feeling I get from a shower and a change of clothes can't be beat!
Your Friend, who found the postal truck that led me to You!
Mike

You'd have to ask someone from the club down there or the park itself. I don't recall from my trip in 1994.

Don W

Wow, got my PST CaK on Saturday and the bottom just dropped out of our thermometer. Nice clear skies yes, but bone chilling cold with -20 degree wind chills. It's just not fair.

Haven't heard any reports from Astrofest this year. I've been laid up and wasn't able to attend this year.

Hi Ed. My take on this is that the truss system is really there for stiffness and not for load bearing. The UTA is very light. For that reason I can see where a 6 pole design would work very well.

Seems to me that the vast majority of posts here relate to Dobs. Just pointing out that there is a Dobsonian Forum here and it is moderated by an actual live moderator who checks in daily.

Don Wyman
Moderator-Dobsonian Forum

First off, I would be very surprised to hear that Coronado has EVER delivered a Solarmax 40 in 8-12 weeks. Mine took 6.5 months. As to the Binovue, I'm not sure you'll have enough focus travel with the Solarmax diagonal.

I use my Solarmax 40 with a TV Ranger and the views are wonderful. I used to have a Daystar .7A on a C-8. It was such a hassle to set it up. The Solarmax is up and running very quickly.

Don Wyman

Wow,and I thought I was a scopaholic. I bow to the master .

Don Wyman