Garner State Park Star Party - June 27

This weekend, my wife and I went to Garner State Park for a star party. We met with fellow members of the San Antonio Astronomical Association at Cracker Barrel at 151 and 410 around 9 AM in San Antonio. Then, we caravaned out HWY90 to Garner State Park. We arrived just before noon and set up camp. Once we got hot, we decided it would be nice to hop in the bed of a truck and go take a dip in the frio.

We enjoyed swimming, watching college kids get ticketed for drinking in the river, and watching two of the SAAA members on the rope swing. Once we were good and pruny we got out of the river, changed and drove into Leakey, Texas for some great Italian food.

After dinner, we drove back to the park and we set up our 16" Meade Lightbridge dobsonian telescope. I was able to use my gigapan to snap some wide angle views: (More Blog after Pictures)

Zoom in on these:




After dark, the public showed up for viewing. We kept the scope on the Ring Nebula for that. Then. around 11:30PM I was able to do some serious starhopping. With the help of my lovely wife, we starhopped to many objects. We saw M51, the Sunflower Galaxy, Owl Nebula, and more. I eventually turned in around 2:30am. Viewing was great. I got to bag about 13 objects off my Messier list I'm working on as part of the astronomy League's observing list.