On Saturday, 11 November 2023, I was at Oracle State Park, our local DarkSky International (formerly known as the International Dark-Sky Association, IDA) "International Dark Sky Park", to participate in the "Learn to Scope Star Party".

Cloudy skies then returned to Oracle. With rain in the forecasts, I put the Dome Cover ON Wednesday, 15 November. Rain arrived on Thursday (0.24"). Saturday morning, 18 November, there was a nice sundog shortly after sunrise, followed by a nice rainbow a little later.

Had 0.006" rain late Saturday afternoon, 18 November.

Sunday, 19 November, was windy and cloudy, but the wind died down and the clouds went away late in the afternoon. Sunday evening I went to a local observatory. I was one of several people who would be helping at a star party that would be held the next night. I used a Meade 10" LX200 Classic that had been set up. It had been upgraded to use an AudioStar GOTO system. It is the telescope at the far right in the top photo.

For Monday's star party I would be showing interested attendees how to do some basic smartphone astrophotography. Sunday night I did a checkout of the telescope that I would be using at the star party. After doing star alignments on the 10" telescope, I then did some handheld iPhone 15 Pro Max imaging of the near First Quarter Moon to check which eyepiece would be best for my demonstrations. Both of these images were taken with the iOS app NightCap Camera. I decided I would use a 31mm focal length eyepiece (80X; second image) for Monday's event.

Monday, 20 November, was clear. There were about 40 people in attendance.

I gave a short talk about the negative impacts of Artificial Light at Night and Light Pollution. I then used the 10" LX200 with a 32mm eyepiece (78) to show some of the attendees the Moon and the planet Jupiter. Everyone was excited by the views through the telescope. When they were not with me, they were using other telescopes that were available. Several people took advantage of learning how to take smartphone photographs through a telescope. Here are two handheld photos I took of the Moon and Jupiter with three of the Galilean Moons.

It was a wonderful and highly successful star party.

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My hometown is hosting a Total Solar Eclipse Festival in 2024. I will be one of the speakers. A Louisville TV station aired a story about the Festival.

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