Stargazing at WSP-- the heart and soul of the event

I managed to pack my gear tightly for the trip.  Shown below is my Astrosystems secondary cage case, which had (on its bottom) my four-fan mirror front cooler, then the secondary cage, with my 10" off-axis mask and extension light baffle atop all.  I didn't end up using anything except the secondary cage!

The view from and of the beach on West Summerland Key was spectacular, despite a few radio towers and the 24 hour stream of traffic down the highway behind the scopes.  The view to the south was dark down to the ocean, and I had high hopes of seeing such southern jewels as Omega Centauri (dashed by the 30 degree minimum altitude traverse of my scope, fixed here Brutus Mods Round 2)

This was the only problem with my scope (well, other than the DSC's that I wasted too many hours trying to set and fix! <g>)  Viewing conditions lived up to their reputation for sub-arc second seeing.  With my newfound observing buddy Pete (a schoolteacher who flew in from Maine) we star-tested and perfected collimation one night, and by 0300 had a group of observers clustered around taking turns looking at such impressive sights as Saturn at 820X in the scope.  At least one seasoned observer (Attilla Danko of 'Clear Sky Clock' fame) commented favorably on both the optical quality of Brutus' mirror and on the ease with which it could be moved to manually track planets at 800X and more.

The skies seemed the clearest on Sunday night-- before the formal start of WSP.  I had my 20 x 80 binoculars out, and was awed by the views. During the WSP itself I would estimate Limiting Magnitude was barely greater than 6.0, but the skies felt darker than this, probably because of the lack of light dome to the south (were I was doing most of my observing.)  Virtually every from Sunday through Thursday night was clear and useable, so that by the time Friday --and the prospect of clouds-- arrived, we were ready to pack it in and go!

Me at the "lagoon" on the first night

Me with some of my 'observing posse'. 

(Both photos courtesy of Tom Kennedy)