Last night was our first public "Star Party" hosted by the Newport Department of Parks and Recreation. They had a great idea and did a fantastic job of preparing Frank Wade field for this event. We are so thankful for their time, effort, and resources. We had a great turnout, and I hope everyone had a great time. Thank you all for joining us under the stars and spending your Friday evening on a cold field while we battled with clouds, focus, and other challenges that are common with astrophotography.
The days leading up to the event were uncertain as the weather predicted everything from clouds to rainstorms. We decided that we would go forward unless the forecast was certain rain and had a backup plan of showing images and videos and answering questions if the conditions were bad.
For me, the event started the day before when I set up my scope to test that everything was in working order. The test checked out, and in fact, my new camera (a ZWO ASI678MC) performed much better than I expected. Here is an animation I took with the camera of Europa and Io, moons of Jupiter, rotating and Io casting a shadow.
I typically set up and do a full test so that when I break down, I can simply store the equipment and know I'm not missing anything that I need for the event. At 5:00 PM on Friday. I. grabbed all of my components and equipment and gear and placed them in plastic tubs for convenient transportation (and to protect them from dew on the field). I loaded the back of my car and headed out to meet with the team around 6:30 so that we could get the equipment onto the field and set it up.
We were excited that the forecast swapped to clear skies and the moon rose beautiful and bright. We used the moon to do a rough alignment of our gear and to focus our telescopes. It also helped us visualize when and where Saturn would rise later that evening.
The city set up a projection screen for me to present to kick things off and then share the live feed. In addition, my good friend and retired professional astronomer Sifan Kahale brought a 14" Celestron which is many times more powerful than my scope for people to look through.
This way, our guests could relax and watch the screen or have a more intimate viewing experience at the bigger telescope. I shared some information about what we would be viewing, how to find different targets in the sky using either celestial coordinates or "star-hopping" and then we jumped into viewing.
People began arriving shortly after 7pm and by 9pm we had a full crowd on the field. If you made it to the event, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below!
The first destination was the moon. We looked at it using my older and wider field of view camera at a 2,350mm focal length, then I switched to the planetary camera with a special lens that increases the focal length to 5,785mm. A longer focal length provides much more magnification. Many people were surprised at how close and detailed a view we were able to provide.
If you're a fan of the moon, here is ten minutes of lunar footage I've taken over the years.
After hunting for some Apollo landing sites, we moved onto the Andromeda galaxy with lackluster results. Saturn was high enough to view at this point, but near the horizon the atmosphere severally degraded the image.
I heard Sifan announce M13: The Hercules Globular Cluster, as her next target, so I "stole" the idea and focused on that. I used a technique known as "live stacking" to combine exposures in real-time so the longer we watched, the more detailed the image became. I was very pleasantly surprised at the result from just a few minutes on the target. This is the final image that we created last night.
You have explicit permission from DSW Galleries to save, reproduce, use as your desktop, print, or otherwise share the following images in this blog post. All of the deep sky images that follow in this post were a community effort and are yours!
We also imaged the bright M27: Dumbbell Nebula and that also came out surprisingly clear. Here is the final image from last night.
By now if was well after 10pm and most people had already left. I apologize to those who missed out. Saturn rose high enough to escape the turbulence and came in clear through my scope. This is what it looked like on the projector.
Here is what I pulled off the camera:
Thanks again to everyone who joined us! If you enjoy astronomy and looking at images from space, check out the 2025 Oregon Coast Astrophotography Calendar. I have about one dozen in stock as of this writing for immediate delivery or pickup and will order another batch for September to give you plenty of time to gift them to friends and family.
Thanks again to the City of Newport, the great connections we made there, to Sifan for sharing her time, telescope, and experience, and to everyone who joined us to make this a fun and engaging event. Stay tuned for the announcement of our next Star Party that we'll tentatively plan for later this year.
Are you an art collector or a local business interested in showcasing and/or consigning local art? Browse our gallery pieces here and visit our exhibition at the Newport Visual Arts Center.
Regards,
Jeremy, Owner
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