Trips

Winter Star Party 2023

WSP Welcome Image

The annual Winter Star Party in the Florida Keys is my favorite annual event, always held in February or occasionally in very late January or early March. It’s almost a religious pilgrimage for me, and I’ve only missed once in 20 years since I started attending, and that was due to a death in the family (I was already packed and loaded when I got the worst phone call of my life… but that’s another story).

Morning Milky Way
Earth clouds on star clouds. The Summer Milky Way makes an appearance just before dawn.

What’s so special about the Winter Star Party, or WSP? I think it’s the location and of course the people. A star party is after all a social event, and I have met many lifelong friends at WSP. It’s currently held at adjacent girl scout and boy scout campgrounds on “Scout Key”, south of Marathon, but sill 40 miles from Key West. The girl scout side has been ravaged by hurricanes and is a bit more of a primitive camping experience. The boy scout side however is well manicured, has power, a clean and modern bath/shower facility, and even “glamping” tents with AC. Yes, both sides have been hit by the same hurricanes, but the boy scouts have built back. It’s never too late to teach our children that the boys have all the money and get the nicer things… (that’s sarcasm btw… or an indictment, take your pick).

Omega Centauri Image
Hands down, my favorite WSP image visually or photographically is the great globular cluster Omega Centauri.

There is light pollution from the keys of course, so it’s not “Okey-Tex” dark skies, but the view to the South is dark, and only with a long exposure (with a camera on a tripod) can you see a small light dome on the horizon… from Havana Cuba! The southern sky is a treat, among my favorites, there’s Omega Centauri, the king of globular clusters, Centaurus A, an amazing irregular galaxy, and if the weather gods show favor — the great Eta Carina nebula will make an appearance, no more than 6 degrees above the ocean’s most southerly view.

Centaurus A Image
Centaurus A is a peculiar galaxy and one of my favorite WSP targets.

The keys are a special place too. I live in Florida, but I live near Orlando and the “attractions” are only an hour away. The Florida Keys are almost like another state entirely. Tropical beaches, the vibrant blues and green of the ocean, tiki huts, and seafood galore. People from all over the world come to my part of Florida on vacation. If you live here, going to the Keys is where we go on vacation. There’s plenty to do in the keys too for your non-astro-nut family members. Key West is also a whole other world in itself. You can rent a boat, go snorkeling, kayaking, fishing, the list is endless.

Epic Dew
Soaking wet dew graced us the last clear night of the star party.

This past year was my first year in nearly two decades that I did not attend as a vendor representative, and the first held in three years due to cancelations over the Pandemic. The weather was clear, but windy most of the week, and the smart astrophotographers found places in the lee of the wind. I managed to get some good deep sky data, and even did some lunar and solar lucky imaging.

The last clear night was Friday, and the air was still, and heavy with dew, the worst dew event I recall at this event. I had not prepared for this, and my scope dewed over immediately after dark. I put on a dew strap, cranked it up, and used an alcohol wipe to repeatedly remove the moisture. It took about 45 minutes, but finally I was back in business and got my best image data of the week that night. In fact, I hit the celestial jackpot that night.

Eta Carina Image
Not too bad for only 40 minutes worth of time between 4 and 6 degrees above the horizon!

Early in the morning a friend behind me was “observing” Eta Carina, only about 4 degrees above the horizon. I thought, “well, why not”, and I tried a slew and a single exposure. I expected it to be behind a tree, or below the berm between me and the beach. Surprise! It was not well centered, but it was there, and it was bright! I carefully centered it and found tracking was not that great so close to the horizon, but I could take decent enough 15 second exposures. So, I took 156 of them before a tree did in fact obscure my view! I alternated between red, green, and blue with my monochrome Player One Poseidon-M camera and managed to pull off a decent enough image. One day… I MUST travel south of the Equator to do this target justice.

In the meantime, I’m counting down the weeks until my next “Latitude Adjustment” in February of 2024. See you there? Stop by and say hello!

Earthshine

Thursday night at the 2019 Winter Star Party, the thin crescent Moon presented a wonderful sight. Not only was the Earthshine quite prominent, but two peaks at the bottom limb were just poking up and out into the sunlight making little peaks of light below the crater Tycho. I had my 6″ Esprit 150 refractor setup with an FLI ML-16200 CCD camera, which is really best suited for long exposure astrophotography. So, I shot the lunar limb through an Ha filter, which attenuates the light nicely allowing for the slow shutter speed of a full frame CCD camera. Then for the Earthshine, I used a 10 second exposure through a red filter. This naturally saturated the bright side of the moon, but I blended the two images together in Photoshop to better match the dynamic range that was available to my eyes through binoculars or a neighboring telescope with an eyepiece.

Moon with Earthshine
This image had to be a composite as the Earthshine is so much dimmer than the Sun illuminated limb.

Cosmic Tourists

This year the Winter Star Party returned to the Florida Keys after having to relocate for a year due to the extensive damage wrought by Hurricane Irma. We could not have been treated better by the weather, and there’s going to be several additions to my gallery from this years photography and imaging. This is my favorite image from the trip, and I think possibly my favorite nightscape I’ve ever taken. I also won first place in the wide field imaging contest with this shot. Just before dawn, I knew the Summer Milky Way would be making an appearance and I wanted to catch it behind a row of telescopes setup for the star party. While scoping out (ha, see what I did there) locations, I saw two other people shooting possibly Venus and Jupiter being reflected in the water. I knew I had the perfect shot that captured the essence of the Winter Star Party! Two star gazers enjoying the view in tourist central (the Florida Keys). Truly, we are all here as cosmic tourists.

Richard
Canon 5D Mark III
10 seconds @ISO 3200
Sigma 20mm art lens f/1.4

Astrophoto of astrophotograhers
Cosmic Tourists