Typically, an astronomy Star Party is a gathering of several amateur astronomers with their equipment at a suitable dark sky site. I am labelling this one a Mini Star Party since this was a small gathering of 3 couples (Michael and DiAnne, Jack and Sky, myself and Sharon) in May 2021 with a common interest in Video Astronomy viewing using MallinCam cameras. You reach Cool Breeze campground by passing through farmland and realize in the process you are definitely away from any big cities when you arrive (the closest city is Galax, VA).
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It was partly cloudy the day we arrived at the campground. We were able to use our telescopes right on the RV sites, so I was able to go ahead and set up my telescope and cover it for later viewing.
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I brought an 8” Celestron telescope on an AVX mount and used a HyperStar f/2 setup, which places my MC DS26cTEC camera at the upper end of the telescope. I used painter’s tape to corral my cabling to the camera, which made it easy to remove when we got ready to leave. Here is a picture before I put the dew shield on. This arrangement and the clouds in the background created a somewhat dramatic look! (This is not a “Ghost Busters” device.)
We were later joined by one other person who used the campground’s tent camping area near our sites. We had a mixture of clear nights and some mixed clouds (some with interesting shapes).
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In spite of the clouds, we did get some good viewing times. I keep using the term “viewing” even though we use cameras, because the experience with video astronomy is like viewing sessions. You can see in near real time many different deep sky objects in an evening. You are looking at them on your laptop screen instead of looking through an eyepiece. Part of the fun is trying different techniques to bring out the details of the particular object you are observing. We do screen captures when we have a nice image on the screen we want to keep for later. The DS26cTEC and HyperStar combination produces a very wide Field of View! The following is a collection of screen captures where I went back later and added labels to identify what I saw on the screen. This enables the screen shots to “speak for themselves”.
We also had time to do some sightseeing. We listened to bluegrass music at the visitor's center on the Blue Ridge Parkway and checked out a local vineyard for some wine tasting.
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Here is a picture I took of a one of the most photographed sites on the Blue Ridge Parkway... Mabry Mill at Milepost 176 . Ed Mabry built the mill where he and his wife Lizzy ground corn, sawed lumber, and did blacksmithing for three decades. This water powered mill is still functional and is definitely worth visiting if you get a chance.
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