Astronomers love star parties! Since most live in populated, light polluted areas, it is a treat to be able to travel to the countryside, where dark skies still exist in some areas. To be able to set up your telescope for a few days, or even a week, and spend time observing the night sky that is no longer visible to many of the people on the planet is a real thrill. When you are at a star party you not only are able to spend plenty of time with your own telescope, but you can also take breaks
and walk around the observing fields and get a chance to check out other kinds of telescopes and learn how other equipment you may be interested in really works. There is no better way to see for yourself how something you may be interested in really performs.
Since my wife Jeannie and I published Amateur Astronomy Magazine from 1994 thru 2007, we tried to visit all the major star parties we could fit into our schedule. Since we love to travel around this great country of ours, the two made a great combination! We attended well over 40 major star parties, in all four corners of the country, as well as the heartland. Follow along on the map above and you'll get a good idea of where each star party is located.
The following is a very short version of my presentation Star Parties of the US.
The Texas Star Party, near Ft. Davis in west TX, is one of the first premier dark-sky observing events in the country. In the above photo you can see the Prude Guest Ranch where this week long event is held in April or May every year.
Notice McDonald Observatory can be seen on the mountain top in the top right.
Around 600 attend, and most are serious observers or imagers. The ranch protects the night sky and no white lights are allowed, and there is no driving after dark on the property.
The ranch has cabins, motel rooms, available for those who register early. RV hookups are available, but in all honesty I have to let you know that RV areas suffer from over crowding. The last couple of times we went we camped at the state park across the road from the star party.
Some years the skies are absolutely incredible. Other years there can be a lot of dust in the air and the skies suffer reduced transparency.
The Ranch is at 5,000 ft. elevation, and suffers very little light pollution. However, you are in the windy, rocky, dusty desert, and things will get dirty. The seeing is usually pretty rough, but in the best years the great transparency makes even small scopes perform like large ones, and the large scopes really earn their keep!
Expect hot days and cool/cold nights. The rainy season starts mid-May, so we favor the years when the star party is held early in the season.
We have visited star party sites and astronomy club observing fields all over the country, and have never seen one as nice as my home observing place. Chiefland's older observing field has flush toilets, RV sites, level mowed grass, low horizons in every direction, and electrical outlets all around the perimeter of the field. The skies are not perfect, as low light domes can be seen to the east, but mag 6.8 skies still startle first timers. You usually hear something like, gee, my skies at home don't look like this!
The astronomy village has 24 property owners, and 16 observatories have been built so far. The skies are still dark, and since we are only 20 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, we have good stable air to observe through. The club has over 200 members from 18 states. Members join so they can enjoy astronomy vacations throughout the year. Visit our web site chiefland.org for more info on visiting this wonderful observing site. It's too bad that there aren't more such sites all over this country.
The club holds a week-long star party on the November new moon that draws observers from all over the southeast. But don't worry, at Chiefland, we always say, come early and stay late.
A few years ago there used to be the Riverside Telescope Makers Conference in the mountains in Big Bear, just east of L.A. Today it is called the Riverside Astronomy Expo. It is always held over Memorial Day weekend, regardless of the moon phase, If you want to go observing, there are many other star parties. If you want to go to an expo, this is a big party. It has snowed in Big Bear in May, as the site is at 7000 ft.
West Texas
Oregon
The Oregon Star Party takes place right in the middle of the state in July or August every year.
There are no facilities other than a rocky open field at 5000 ft. elevation in the middle of a state forest, and the nearest town for supplies is 30 miles away.
So what make the OSP the best observing star party in the US? The dark and clear skies! This is a true observer's star party. There are no light domes, no cars driving in and out after dark, and central Oregon has a very dry climate, not like the coast at all.
Chuck and Judy Dethloff founded the OSP years ago and have become masters of putting on a great convention. Since there are no facilities at all, everything has to be brought in. A large tent provides space for presentations; a semi-truck provides showers, and vendors provide food and other goodies.
Observers come from all over the country for the dark and steady skies.
Expect hot days and cool nights. If you need power you have to bring your own.
Southern California
Table Mountain, Washington
The Table Mountain Star Party sits on high flat-top mountain in the center of Washington state at around 6000 elevation. It can snow or grow cold anytime of the summer. The site is not the darkest skies in the country, with light domes seen all around, but the overhead viewing is very good.
This star party has attendance of well over 1000, and they have wonderful full time programs for younger members of the observers families, so they are very family orientated.
Weather can be hot or cold, or freezing. Be prepared for everything Mother Nature can throw at you.
Imagine your telescope sitting under the really big sky country, with clear air all the way to the horizon in every direction. The Nebraska Star Party is held under some of the darkest skies you will ever see. The weather can be fickle, and the mosquitoes can be either ferocious or non-existent.
The Nebraska Star Party is held at a state park in the sand hills, and sometimes boaters will drive in at night, so there are car lights now and then. But the skies are DARK. One night, while waiting for clouds to clear, a group of us gathered our chairs around in a circle, and as twilight ended everyone disappeared. I mean it was weird! You could hear voices of people you were talking to, but could not even see the outline of their heads. It was like being in a perfectly dark cave. I finally had to take a flash photo to burn that experience into the old brain. When the clouds cleared, the stars were so bright it seemed like daylight.
Every year a few hundred gather to observe under these remarkable skies. There are cabins a couple of miles down the road from the observing site, and all talks take place in Valentine at the school auditorium, about 10 miles north.
Nebraska
The Oki-Tex
The Oki-Tex Star Party takes place in the Oklahoma panhandle, about one mile from New Mexico. The facilities are a first class and there are several bunkhouses available on a first-come-first-serve basis. There is not much in the area except a lot of petrified wood that has been laying around for a few million years - great place for a star party. Dark skies and great food are our main memories from this event.
The site, as I remember, is a church camp in a neat little box canyon. It makes you feel like you are in some kind of western movie set. There is lots of room for the 300 attendees, and with no light domes anywhere the skies are darker and clearer than at the larger TSP. Three meals a day are cooked by the greatest little old ladies from a neighboring town, and they all think, just like grandma, that you are not eating enough, so keep trying to get you to come back for seconds.
The only bad thing I can remember is that one night the winds tried to blow everything down. Well, it is held in the wild west.
Astro-Fest
Chicago area
Astro Fest is the mid-wests largest star party, or I should say was the largest. I don't know the details, but the club who ran this August star party for many years had some political problems, and they split the star party into two new ones. I'll tell you about the one I remember and attended three times. For current info, check it out on the web.
This star party was held a a 4-H Camp 60 miles south of Chicago, near Kankakee. This is the flattest farm land I have ever seen in all our travels. The event is held under light-polluted skies, so it is not a dark sky event, and it being in the midwest, it often rains. However, for anyone interested in telescopes, it was the king of amateur telescope making events. There always seemed to be far more home made scopes at Astrofest than Riverside and Stellafane combined.
I have attended three times, and if we are ever in the area again in late summer, will go again. Attendance usually ran around 1200+. Sorry to see the old event have problems.
Star Fest is the best run star party we have ever attended. and that is saying something since it is also the largest event we have ever attended. I don't know that their record attendance is, but the year we went I believe it was over 1500. The site is held in an RV park in central Ontario's beautiful farm country.
If you are an RVer, it was wonderful. I were worried that the non-astronomers who live there would cause tons of light pollution, but it did not happen. We also had an RV site with full hook-ups and good power, and to top it off were able to set up our 20" travel scope right at our motorhome.
I was recruited by our good friend Elizabeth Doucette at the WSP to be a speaker at Star Fest, and was so impressed by the work this group puts into the star party. It is held over 4 days, and the whole time they have two astronomy presentations going at all times, in two different tents. The tent I was in had to hold at least 300-500 people, and every talk was well attended.
The observing is typical mid-western. The skies can be very good, or very cloudy. If you live anwhere in the center of the country you should put this event on your to-do list.
Stellafane Springfield, Vermont
If you ever are going to be in New England in the summer, check to see when Stellafane is being held. This is the granddaddy of all star parties - even though it is not a star party - but rather a telescope makers convention. It is near town and the skies are light polluted. However, telescope makers from the east go there every year to show off their latest and greatest work to like-minded enthusiasts. If you are interested in atm projects, you will enjoy yourself.
The Winter Star Party Florida Keys
It's the middle of winter, the new moon week at the beginning of Feburary, and it's hot. But it doesn't matter, tonight you will be observing again, probably all night for the seventh night in a row, in either shirt sleeves or a light jacket. You're on an island about 35 miles east of Key West, only 24 degrees above the equator, and Eta Carinae, a bright nebula five times the size of the Great Orion nebula, will mesmerizing you again. Of course with nearly 12 hours of darkness, you will also probably be star hopping around the inside of Omega Centauri at over 1000 power in your telescope.
You are standing on a tiny private island with 600 other astronomers, tightly packed together into a space built for a much smaller crowd of girl scouts. Oh well, who cares? Just about every night the seeing is phenomenal, and has actually been measured at .25 arc seconds, close to the that of the finest observing sites on the planet. Your telescope will perform better than you have ever seen it perform before. Star images are unbelieveably tiny, even in the largest instruments, and although the skies are fairly dark to the south, in all other directions you are surrounded by light domes.
There are many reasons that the WSP sold out every year for the last 25 years. The main one is the observing is the stuff dreams are made of. If you haven't gone yet, what are you waiting for?
Ontario's Star Fest Canada's largest star Party
The Chiefland Star Party North Florida
