Observing Notesfrom the Tuckahoe IrregularsSteve and Bruce Swayze had invited anyone who was interested to come to the Oregon Star Party (OSP) held on the August new moon each year. I decided to take them up on their offer and booked a flight to Portland. They were great host, all I had to do was get to Oregon, they picked me up at the airport on Wednesday, put me up for the night at Steve's house and Bruce drove the 4+ hours out and back to the OSP. The star party had 760 people registered but the observing field (a flat mountain top) was large enough that it was not crowded. We had three great nights of observing. I would rate the skies just a little better than Spruce Knob but with low horizons all around with no sign of light domes -the nearest town is over 40 miles away. Bruce had brought his 15" dob but we spent most of the time circulating and catching views through the bigger scopes -quite a few with Swayze mirrors. During the day there were interesting talks in the main tent on topics such as counting meteors, video astronomy, and the MacDob project (Macintosh-based telescope control system). One neat thing they have is called the Telescope walk-about. Instead of having a judged ATM event they pick out some interesting newly finished telescope projects then visit each of these scopes on the field and have the owners tell about the scope and then take questions from the group. I estimate over 100 people attended this event. It was a great trip we all had fun and the Swayze's invited myself and others back again next year. Keith Lohmeyer |