Observing at Copperbreaks State Park
Sep 29, 2003
I attended my first Star Walk at Copperbreaks State Park, near Quanah, Texas, over the weekend. I really had a good time meeting a couple of forum buddies Jeff Barton and David Ryle while doing some observing with my girlfriend, Trista, in some pretty dark skies.
This first part of the evening was spent walking around looking at all the Obsession dobs dotting the observing field. Obsession Company owner Dave Kriege was present and it was quite a thrill to meet him while Trista bowed at his feet. The 8” TMB refractor on the AP 1200 GTO mount was tremendous as was the 12.5” binocular scope. Other equipment present were 3” and 5” Takahashi apochromatic doublet refractors and a pair of 4” Televue apochromatic refractors, not to mention Jeff’s 6” Celestron CR-150.
At sunset, at least 200 visitors from the small, neighboring communities sat down in the observing field while guides pointed out objects in the sky with green laser pointers (note to self: must get one of these). Oohs and aahs were the sound of the night as guides pointed from object to object, asterism to asterism.
After 15 minutes of planetarium viewing in what was now ~6.5 mag skies, the guides turned the crowd loose to enjoy the views through all the equipment on hand. Scopes pointed at various different objects as the next couple of hours past. Because this was my first Star Walk, I didn’t volunteer as a guide, though I did walk the infield to help where I could. I enjoyed speaking to a few people who had questions. One lady in particular was very interested in understanding how the stars rotated in its celestial sphere. I enjoyed every bit of it but owning one of those green lasers would have been very sweet.
Once the crowd started to thin out a bit, I walked around an got a few views of my own. The views through the 8” TMB were astonishing, especially when they put an i3 intensifying EP on it for the Hercules Cluster (M13). Mars looked good though the seeing was a bit unstable when I did my TMB viewing. For me, due to timing, the best views of Mars were through the 5” Tak FS-128 refractor. The Eye of Mars (Solis Lacus) was prominent on this night.
But the observing thrill of the night was viewing the Ring Nebula (M57) through the 12.5” Binocular scope. I didn’t think it was possible, but the view of the Ring through this scope was actually too bright! I couldn’t make out any of the ring structure for this reason and I’m sure that the brightness of the ring itself had to be obscuring the central star. An amazing view! A close runner up was viewing the Veil Nebula with an OIII filter through one of the 20” Obsession dobs. Every piece of lattice work in the nebula was viewable and even showed some subtle shades of color.
Even though I didn’t setup any of my own equipment (except for my camera on a tripod for some star trails…stay tuned), I did pull out my binoculars and did some observing with Trista as she pulled out her 8” Orion XT-8 dob for some Messier viewing. We had a good time exploring through Aquarius and Capricornus, a weak part of the night sky for me. M2, M30, M72 and M75 were ripe for the picking. M2 was especially impressive, easily seen through my 16x70 Fujinon binoculars and easily resolved in the 8” dob.
Because we were a bit tired, Trista and I decided to say our goodbyes but not before I spent a little time with Jeff and David. Jeff was enjoying his 6” Celestron refractor and Ci-700 mount while doing a little planet hunting. David was busy bouncing around between the dobs and the TMB refractor, but I did manage a few moments with him near one of the dobs.
Kudos to Jeff for giving me a hint as to how to turn off the running lights on my Chevy Tahoe, something I’ve been trying to do for two years. “Just press down one click on the parking brake,” Jeff explained. So as Trista and I left the few diehard observers at around midnight, I slowly drove away from the site with no running lights. Of course, that didn’t prevent me from giving Jeff a good blast of my rear brake lights…sorry about that, Jeff!