by Bill Engberg
Woolly Hollow State Park was a huge hit Saturday night:
- 100-150 people
- Ink Black skies
- Milky Way was so bright a college student took a picture of it tonight…and his image looked like a NASA post card.
- Hubble visible overflight!
- International Space Station made an insanely visible overflight brighter than Jupiter
- Appx 10 scopes!
- “Wow!!!” was heard all night long, at every scope, said by tomorrows Astronauts, scientists, teachers and engineers.
- Electric plug-ins and 50′ extension = Beethoven’s 9th and assorted masterpieces.
- John Reed supplied Laser Light Show.
- Cool weather and no bugs!!!
The IDA Arkansas Section was in attendance with their display on light pollution issues and based upon the dwindling number of IDA pamphlets at the end of the evening a good number of star party visitors stopped by the display.
I highly recommend winter star parties…I think they are as good or better than the summer ones (no sweat and no bugs), and could be done in Dec Jan Feb as well, if people were interested. Tonight’s turn out proved it, the public was driving up from LR to see the show.
Carl gets the MVP award once again for pulling the overflight data and making the Hubble and Shuttle overflight possible and visible to everyone attending. Carl, you rock!