STAR PARTIES Most people have a misconception about the average astronomer. They are not the stereotyped drooling book wormy nerds you see in movies and television. Astronomers are more like the characters portrayed in Carl Sagan’s “CONTACT.” They are normal, sensible professional and amateur scientists with poetic and artistic hearts and minds. While you live your daylight lives, they sleep. When the night sky rises in the east, they begin to stir and spend the dark sky hours looking into the face of God searching for their holy grail in the form of celestial phenomenon. Astronomers are a very peaceful and gentle breed. That is until they get together at a Star party. Add a few hundred pounds of rare steak, cold beer and tequila, stir lightly with a few dozen giant telescopes and let simmer. The result of this recipe is anyone’s guess. Usually, it’s a great feast enjoyed by everyone, but occasionally it gets really WILD! Riverside Telescope Makers Conference. Every year the RTMC puts on a wonderful Memorial weekend star party at Big Bear Lake in the Mountains of Southern California USA. They have lectures, parties, swap meets, and drawings for fabulous prizes. RTMC provides food for sale and a dining hall for eating and other big events. Every day and every night is filled with activities for the whole family. In fact, one very cold night a lecture on sky asterisms was just concluding when someone emerged from the dining hall and began to illustrate his knowledge of the heavens by pointing out constellations with a high beamed white light hand held mega watt search light. This did not sit well with the astronomers that had their scopes pointed in the same region of the sky. (As you know, it takes a while to get “night eyes” and any white light can destroy hours of pupil dilation. And if anyone was taking astro-photos with long exposure times, such an error on the part of some thoughtless bone-head might ruin many hours of work.) Anyway, someone loudly said, “Hey! Turn that @#%* light off!” The instructor either ignored the request or just didn’t realize that he was being yelled at. The white light intrusion continued and many more astronomers began to scream in rapid fire that the light should be turned the heck off. Finally a voice came out of the dark from what was presumed to be the person holding the light, “Shut the hell up!”...or something to that effect. Suddenly the verbal abuse escalated and everyone standing around watching this event unfold was becoming quite amused at this unusual confrontational entertainment. Now remember...it was very dark. No light is allowed in the scope area other than low “Red Light” that won’t affect the astronomer’s night eyes. It was at this point that someone who didn’t appreciate being told to take a flying leap by the instructor, decided to toss a rock in the direction of the offending white light. “SON OF A @#%*,” was heard for a two mile radius and the fight was on. I couldn’t see much, but the fight that ensued was short and sweet. And that white light. It was gone for good. Everything was quiet now and it was time to enjoy the night. The sky was great and the scopes were finely tuned. Everyone was happy...And then it began to snow. And snow. And snow. Well, time to go in and break out the hot coffee and the cold beer. Yeah, I’ve been to many star parties and quite frankly they are a BLAST! Want to go to a Star Party near you?           Home | Site Map © Copyright 2007 HUNTER IN THE SKY. All Rights Reserved.