Golden State Star Party - Night 4

The last night was a success - guiding was great and I took images of the Crescent Nebula and the remaining images for the Bubble nebula.

The day was (yet again) uneventful. We had another BBQ in the evening - people here really know how to make beef.

I also took some images of the the camp and its atmosphere:

The whole experience was awesome - I will definitively come back next year. Here are a couple of things to remember for next year:

• A larger tent - preferably one where you can open the walls.
• Shoestring Nikon cable, so that I can take wide field images with the DSLR on top of the scope
• Solar panels to recharge the batteries (no more schlepping batteries over the camp ground) and/or a second battery recharger
• The Celestron suspension pads
• A thicker cover for the scope to make sure that it doesn't get so dusty during the day
• Swiss Army knive (with cork screw!)
• Larger Astroturf with shorter covering (or maybe I can use the blue tarp that I bought this year)
• Red screens for phone and tablet
• Water bottle

Larry and I also talked about bringing the kids next year. It would be great if they get to experience these skies too (just a few days ago Peter asked me why the milky way is called milky -if he were here, he would know!) We thought about some things that the kids could do:

• They can observe the sky with my 6" scope - the should be able to use the hand control. We can give them a list of objects that they can slew to.
• We can give them a list of Iridium flares and satelites to observe
• The quadcopter
• Kite
• We can do day trips into the surroundings
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