Star Party Update Number 2
July 2003
A few people have pledged to bring their telescopes to Big Sky for you to use! We will plan to have them aimed at interesting objects not usually visible from cities. The selected objects are listed in The Evening Sky Map and Sky & Telescope.
Troy Henderson plans to bring a solar spectrometer and show you that instrument before sunset.
We will have sky maps for you both on the Sunday night sky viewing and the Tuesday night Star Rally. The telescopes will be set out both nights. The telescopes are not part of the Star Rally. The rally will rely on your eyes. The rain date for the Rally would be Wednesday night.
Please bring the following:
appropriate clothing for expected cool temperatures at high elevation at night
binoculars
insect repellant
small flashlight (penlight) covered with red cellophane to protect night vision
pencil to fill out contest sheet
we will provide a star chart (hard copy of The Evening Sky Map for August 2003 from www.skymaps.com)
we will give out keyring size button red lights (first to registered attendees)
we will NOT provide red cellophane and rubber bands
on Tuesday, August 5, 2003 sunset is about 8:53 PM MDT
Big Sky, Montana
For the mountain village:
Latitude = 45.29 deg
Longitude = -111.40 deg
Elevation = 2,275 m
Did you realize that you are midway between the equator and north pole?
Here is a web site that has an interactive sky chart:
http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/skychart/
use change location button
Mars rises about 10:20 PM in east-southeast.
Dark sky begins about 9:30 PM.
You may contact Michael Zedd with questions and comments.
zedd@nrl.navy.mil
I am unable to attend the conference. Dave Vallado will be in charge of the evenings' programs.
Volunteer |
Telescope |
Chris Hall |
5" Schmidt-Cassegrain |
Troy Henderson |
Questar 3.5" |
Troy Henderson |
solar spectrometer |
Joel Kimball |
8" Schmidt Cassegrain |
Joel Kimball |
6" Newtonian reflector |
Joel Kimball |
trapezoidal binocular mount for my high powered (16x) binoculars |
Dave Vallado |
Next Star GPS (11") |
John Seago & Mark Davis |
NRL telescope |