Well,
It was one of those days. Jeff called at work and announced that the weather would be fine and that the OVAS dark sky group was to visit the new site in Carter County, KY. I had only two evening meetings so why not?
I'd never been to Carter County but I dutifully followed the signs to Carter Caves State Park. I was supposed to meet Don Kemper at the lodge. I end up at a building that turns out to be the ticket center for the caves - hmmm. A little more exploring and i find a sign pointing to the direction of the lodge. Back in the car. I know that I'm supposed to turn left. I see the turn sign and there is a building.
It looks small for a lodge but what the heck I'll stop. There's a light on inside. I'll just take the path up the steps. Rustle. Rustle. Freeze. I am a city boy in the woods. It could be a cat. Could be. It's moving into the light - about 4 feet away. It's black with a white stripe and a raised tail. SKUNK! Ahh, I run off. Leaving the skunk to guard the steps. Well, maybe this isn't the lodge after all. I'll get back in the car.
I find the lodge. I find Don. Don guides me from the park to a local farm owned by a friend. Off to the Hay meadow.
I get there any leo and the big dipper are up. It looks nice. I start the process of unloading the 20". I'm the last to arrive (Jeff Ball and Tim Lester are already there) so there's no shortage of help to transport my stuff from the car (well it's actually a SUV) to where everyone else is set up. I start to put the scope together. I show Tim how I use the laser to collimate. All are in good spirits. Then we look up. There are no stars. Clouds abound.
Steve ??? arrives with his C102.
Jeff breaks out the food - always a bad sign. I take off my glasses and put them on my observing chair. I decide to show off by tracking a plane with the Obsession. I sit down. Ooops. Now where are my glasses. Now everyone is all over looking for my glasses in the tall grass. Glasses are found only 10 min later. I get up jumping for joy. Then I realize that one lens is missing. Back on to my hands and knees. “Where was I standing when I began to jump arround?” The other eyepiece takes another 5 minutes.
We begin glasses repair.
Talk moves to the scopes and we tour what is assembled. We learn that Don can machine aluminum. He has made a telrad mount that lifts it off the base. Every astronomer needs a buddy who can machine aluminum.
We spot Cassiopea and Persius in the trees so I nail the double cluster and everyone takes a turn sitting virtually on the ground for a lovely treetop view.
Well the 22mm Nagler has been at the limits of the focus travel so I decide to raise the miror. Tim and I then got to recollimate the dob. A good exercise.
Steve starts talking about horses. Jeff is sleeping in the van. Leo pops out and 3 of us got to see M65,66 before the clouds covered it again. I return to Casseopea. I begin to look for my Star Atlas's. Bright star 2000 and Sky Atlas 2000. I am baffeled. I KNOW that I packed them. I go to the car. I go to my table. I travel back and forth between the car, scope and table. No charts. Oh well. good thing that I keep Orion's deep Map 600 in my Eyepiece case. What can we see - Cassiopea. Open deep map, we view M103. Casseopea vanishes in the clouds.
I again try to track a plane. This time my glasses are in my pocket.
At 12:20 Steve decides to go. I begin to take down the dob. We are doing a lot of talking - Tim is building a dob so he is looking at my scope and how it is made and how it disassembles. As we are taking the scope down I have Don hold the dob down so I can get the truss cover off (it is tail heavy after the finder scope comes off the UTA). I see something dark down in the scope - between the mirror box and the ground board. It's my Sky Atlases! How did they get there? I can only surmise that they slid down there during transit. You couldn't do that if you tried!
Finally everything is down and in the car. As I get ready to go I see that jeff is taking his scope down too. There will be no astrophotograhy tonight.
Still, no one is been in a hurry to leave. It has been a pleasant evening of quiet talk. Punctuated by animal encounters and crawling through the 8" high grass looking form various possessions, but it beats working. Three turns to the highway, two lefts and a right ... or is it the other way arround?
Don told me that he let his dog a out at 3 AM, it was clear as a bell, not a cloud in the sky.