[Chaos-l] Staunton River Star Party

[Young, Randy (Public Safety)]

Folks:

Just wanted to echo what everyone else was saying.  Had a great time at my first CHAOS star party and, well, my first star party...period.  Didn't make the rookie mistake of arriving late with headlights blasting, but did spend a bit of time around dusk figuring how to calibrate the telescope from Raleigh-Durham to South Boston (-ish).  Only came up for Friday night through around 1 a.m., but it turned out great...Spent a good 3 hours scanning dozens of Messier objects and non-objects (highlights -- Ghost of Jupiter was incredible, and Sombrero was worth waiting for).  After a break at the grill, tried hooking my Canon up via a t-ring for some shots.  Not sure if it's the alt-azimuth tracking on my Celestron or shutter-shake, but images are typically blurry, which is disappointing, because I got beautiful color in the Orion Nebula at ISO 1600 for around 45 seconds and some neat shots of Saturn, but still learning.

Thanks to CHAOS and to park staff who helped put food and hot coffee in my belly and feeling back into my fingers.  Looking forward to October.

Randy B. Young

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