Enchanted Skies Star Party September 24-27 - New M

The Enchanted Skies Star Party offers several exciting features, including a unique opportunity for a night of observing at an elevation of 10,000 feet. We'll continue our decade-long tradition of presenting outstanding lectures by leading professional and amateur astronomers, and we'll gather on Saturday night for an evening of great food, Southwestern entertainment and excellent, dark-sky observing.

http://www.socorro-nm.com/starparty/

We hope to see you there,
The ESSP planning committee

Hi,

This is my first year on the committee, so I'll have to get back to you on some of the questions, but I can answer some. The 10,000ft observing is on South Baldy, also the location of Langmuir Lab and the Magdalena Ridge Observatory. Type "south baldy, socorro, nm" into Google maps and it will show you were it is, about an hours drive to the ridge from Socorro. Weather is a bit unpredictable, but our monsoon season has come early this year so hopefully by September we'll have good weather for observing. From the ridge you can look west and see the VLA as well as on the ridge there is the 2.4m telescope commissioned last October and the ongoing construction of the MROI (Magdalena Ridge Optical Interferometer).

A schedule is located here: http://www.socorro-nm.com/starparty/subpage.events.html

I'll check on why observing on the ranch is not on the schedule this year and get back to you.

Luke

I have talked with some of the other organizers and here are their responses:

Why no Pound Ranch observing?

The Pound Ranch site became a problem in that the family didn't want to
cater the dinner out there any more. We also had trouble finding a caterer
to go down to that site. Couple that with an "iffy" road and a chance flash
floods and we decided to look elsewhere.

The El Camino Real Heritage Center Folks sort of recruited us and did
everything possible to make it a good site. This included turning out lights
and even putting black garbage bags over the green exit signs inside the
center!

As a dark site it is the equal of the Pound Ranch which is why we are
hesitating to go back. As you know we will have a camp host at the dark site
all four days.

(my note - this observing is on Saturday, schedule below)

Saturday, September 27, 2008

* Lecture at Etscorn Campus Observatory.

* Saturday-night chuck-wagon dinner and observing at El Camino Real International Heritage Center, about 30 miles south of Socorro. Shuttle Service begins 3:00 p.m.; Dinner served at 5:00 p.m.

* Campfire Lecture, 7:00 p.m.

* Grand Prize Drawing


Also, in addition to the Wednesday night observing on South Baldy at 10,000ft there will be tours of the new 2.4m telescope (First light Oct. of 2006) as well as the construction site of the Optical/IR interferometer, scheduled to go online in the next couple of years. http://www.mro.nmt.edu

This is just a reminder that September 15 is the last day to register before rates go up!

http://www.enchantedskies.org/fees.html