Despite this being a weird summer, the call of nature came to me once again. Having regained my interest in astronomy a couple years ago, I was really looking forward to once again heading out to Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park for the Saskatchewan Summer Star Party. Alas, it was not to be. If you read my previous post, I was playing at a wedding in Middle Lake instead. I also ended up missing a star party in July because of a wedding. But luckily, I found one not too super far away on a weekend where I was actually free: the Alberta Star Party at the Starland Recreation Area.

Starland Recreation Area is on Highway 28 about 40km north of Drumheller. It sits on the east bank of the Red Deer River which was pretty low by this point in early September. (I’m glad I didn’t bother bringing my kayak!) Let me get 2 things out of the way. Firstly, if you have to pay $20 a night in the fall for a campsite, the WC better be clean! I’m not asking for sinks and flush toilets; I’m perfectly fine using outhouses when camping. But these looked and smelled like they hadn’t been emptied since the start of summer. Not cool! Second, even though I didn’t bother bringing my kayak, I was really shocked at the condition of the road down to the river. If I had my kayak and my  Fiat, I would have been in serious trouble.

Now, on to the fun part! Sort of. I have to admit that I was super nervous about going. I’ve been feeling very low for some time now (not Lady Grumpy Pants low like I was during my first camp of the year but still rather blah.) I was really scared about camping with a bunch of people I didn’t know. And not just ordinary people but hobbyists. Like any group of people in a hobby, amateur astronomers can get pretty hardcore and the attitude that comes with that passion can range from those enthusiasts who want everyone as obsessed as they are to the people who won’t talk to you unless you’re ‘doing it right’. I didn’t know what I was getting into and it was nerve-racking. And migraine inducing. So was the heat on that first day. After getting set up, I went down to the river and laid in the grass for a while. A curious little chipmunk came to visit but quickly ran off when she realized that I was indeed still alive.

The whole point of a star party was to see the stars and thankfully, the pain went away by the time the sun went down. And my brother also managed to make it by sundown too. Starland isn’t a dark sky preserve but it definitely wasn’t bad out there. The seeing that first night was upsetting the imagers in the crowd but for us, it wasn’t a big deal. [‘Seeing’ in astronomy refers to the stillness of the sky. Think of a clear lake. If you see straight down, the seeing is good. But if you throw a rock in there, the bottom is still visible but it’s not very clear. In other words, the seeing is bad. Make sense?] I tried a few things with my camera but I really have to learn/remember to properly focus before it gets dark. (I really miss the old lenses where infinity was hard to screw up!) And I also learned that my camera does not like a high ISO…which I kind of already knew but I thought I’d try it out anyway.

Early autumn has been a crazy cold one and at around 1am, it was just getting to be too much for us. I had more layers that I could have put on but sometimes you just get so cold that you don’t want to move. But move we did to bed. I haven’t slept in a tent with my brother since we were kids but we made it work. I’m also happy to report that the new -8C sleeping bag I got at Christmas was amazing. I’m really going to love spring and fall camping now!

We decided after breakfast to wander down to the river a bit. There are no formal trails but you can definitely walk along the shore. With the river so low, it was an easy task and there were a lot of neat places to climb to.

We headed back to the site for lunch and vegged out a bit before the presentations. I made a little mistake with the time but since I had yet another migraine, it was nice to just sit and chill out for a bit. Luckily, I was well enough to head down to the main tent for the speakers. Definitely, an imaging event based on two of the three talks but I was super excited by Dr. John McDonald who spoke about working at CERN. I really have to visit that place one day! Being that this was a small star party, practically everyone won a door prize too which I thought was kind of cool. But after the main daylight event, it was time to say goodbye to my brother and make some dinner.

Finding myself alone again, I was a bit reluctant to go to the evening binocular walkthrough. I think this was partly because I had no idea what to expect but also, by this point, I really hadn’t done much socializing with others and felt awkward trying to suddenly join in at the end. The weather forecast wasn’t looking terribly great for most of the night so I decided to pack up my little Celestron Powerseeker 129 that I used the night before and stick to my Bushnell 15X70 binoculars. I kind of wish I had left my telescope out because up until midnight, it really was quite nice. A bit smokey but still better skies than in the city. [Another way astronomers describe the sky is in terms of its ‘transparency’. If we go back to the lake metaphor, transparency would be how clear the water is in the first place. If there’s a lot of silt and other debris in the water, the transparency would be poor.] There’s a lot of great things to see in the sky with binoculars though so spending that time with my binos was worth it.

Overall, it was a great camp. Okay, to me any adventure that involves the night sky is going to be pretty awesome but after the year I’ve had, this was nice. I was out of my comfort zone a bit but I survived. A few last thoughts: for being in a valley, I was impressed with the number of birds I saw. Especially all the bluebirds. Unfortunately, no one ever showed up when my camera was out but take my word for it, they’re out there and they’re lovely! I also want to harp on about light pollution quickly. My camping adventures are slowly but surely going to turn into rants about lighting but there’s a reason for it: blinding people and messing with their Circadian rhythms is not cool. It’s not good for you either so why do it? You honestly don’t need as much light to see in the dark once you’re light adapted and shining bright lights at others who are trying to enjoy nature is just plain stupid. Of course, the astronomer with the super loud generator needs a talking to as well since all pollution is bad pollution but at least he shut that off by midnight. And yes, I still have a lot to learn about astrophotography. I’m having fun with it but also enough frustrations doing it to not want to pursue it too much. We’ll see what the future brings with that though.

Anyway, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the layer cake rock formations of the Alberta Badlands but I hope to be back soon!