Calstar 2024

 Calstar 2024 was held at Lake San Antonio, near the southern end of Monterey County, California.  It's a star party to mark the end of summer and is put on by the San Jose Astronomy Association.  I've been attending off and on since 2012.

In the last few times, I've started going to the event for the whole week, getting on site on Monday or Tuesday.  Since I take the whole week as time off, I try to maximize my vacation.

This past year was a repeat of the last efforts.  Changes this time was the new car and plan to sleep inside it rather than carry a tent and cots.  The astro equipment would also change a bit as I would bring the Titan and the hybrid G11-GM8.

Packing the new car required making an adapter to mount the rooftop pod that I've used on the Prius.  Using some 2x4 with U bolts, the pod now clamps onto the wood and then the wood is clamped to the roof rack.  Works well, I might try to stiffen the interior of the pod since it can still sag.

I no longer bring the heavy cots and tent, affording a different sleeping habit of being in the car on an air mattress.  Getting into the car requires diving through the rear passenger doors, then rotating around to remove my shoes.  I use a cargo box to stand on when exiting the car so that my feet do not get the bristles and burrs of the wild grass into my socks.  Sleeping in the back of the car requires laying at an angle as my 6 foot frame is too long for the flat bed.  This is ok for me as I sleep alone and I can keep my cpap machine and clothing near me.  I am not able to sit up but this is OK.

The new car is a RAV4 that has a plug in battery.  This improves on the system I've used on the Prius.  With a moderately charged battery indicating range of 30 miles, I can leave the car "on idle" for 18 hours.  I was expecting to need to use a NEMA RV plug adapter to charge the car but it was not necessary.

I look forward to using the vehicle for camping in the winter.

Calstar 2024 was hot.  The weather at the end of September can still be warm, it can even be cold.  This time it was hot.  When I packed the car on the weekend prior, I knew that the temperatures were going to be in the 100s.  No need to bring heavy clothes.  

Putting all the bits into the car, I found that the RAV4 had not a significantly larger storage space than the Prius.  This was a surprise but also not, since the full size spare on the RAV4 plus the larger battery takes up room.  I had already conserved some space with removing the cot and tents.  I needed every bit of available room to fully pack the rest of the gear I was bringing.

Future star parties will reduce the cargo boxes by at least two since I will be able to shed the box of USB and Power cables in favor of boxes optimized for each tripod set.

When I got on site on Monday, the temperature was 100F at 4 pm.  I quickly got my shade up and put down the tarps.  Soon after getting the tripods up I found that I'd forgotten the allen wrench at home.  Luckily, Lake San Antonio is not far from Paso Robles and I was able to get to the Lowes and back just a few moments before the last of twilight.

The first night was spent doing the basic polar alignment and focus efforts.  I did finally get some shots done before finally packing in at 3 am.

The coming days were spent staying cool in the heat, writing down the notes from the night before, making plans for the cooler hours of the evening.  I found that with dousing myself with water, I could stay refreshed and not be too hot.  On a typical day of 105 to 108 F heat, I used about 6 liters of water pouring it on my legs, arms, and head as I stayed out of the sun.  So long as a breeze was blowing, I was OK.

I used the same system to keep my box of film supplies cool.  That worked better than keeping them in the car.

Because I continued to take the medications for mental health, I maintained my energy levels and was able to be productive.  This was the first year where I kept real notes.  In the past, I used audio transcription or scribbled little notes to attempt to keep track of what I'd done.  There was always the hope that I would remember, or remember to remember.  Even so, the notes from the field needed a lot of extra work before they could be used to record the experience.  I use my memories of the event as assisted by these notes to write this post.

I was able to finally roll up all the canisters of Tri-X from the remains of the bulk roll.  Then switch to the roll of the SantaColor 100.  I'd bought some metal canisters to bulk load this film, too.  Instead of getting canisters that were reusable, I got the ones from the Film Photography Project that are empty spools of commercial film.  These are perfect to load the film that requires C41 processing.  I kept 4 rolls for myself and gave the rest to Isabel and Anthony to take to their friends.

As a fun experiment, I brought a box of development supplies to process black and white.  

I packed a bottle of HC-110, big bottle of fixer, dev tank for the 4x5 as well as spools for 120 and 35mm.  I also brought trays to run the dry plates taken at the end of GSSP 2023.  I brought the yankee tank in the expectation that I may have 10-12 sheets of black and white to develop - I did not need this item and it is no longer part of the box.

Being able to review the shots on the field rather than waiting until the end of the event really helps with increasing the effectiveness of my efforts.  I can develop the night of the shot, seeing the result of tracking immediately.  This helped me identify tactics that were working and not so that I can make adjustments.

I was very pleased to see good results on M31 and the Pleiades with the 1200mm lens.  These looked great under the loupe and I was very glad to show them off.  Pretty fun!

As I have learned after doing a deeper scan with the Epson V800, there are still issues with trailing.  I have ideas on how to make the next step to fix the problem.

Later in the week, I tried other targets and had varied success.  I also made pictures with the Ektachrome E100.  When developed and put into the protective sleeves, these looked pretty good.

I scanned the best ones of the color photos before going on Thanksgiving holiday to visit family.  The vacation provided the chance to write up notes, process pictures, and upload to the blog and to Flickr.  I've been pleased with the results, even with the blue halo on the stars when using the 1200mm lens.  

Lots of learning, lots of notes, and I feel good to be able to continue my hobby. 

See the whole collection of pictures from the Calstar 2024 event at the flickr album.