The Saskatchewan Summer Star Party - Cypress Hills Prov. Park

Just last weekend, Leanne and I went to Cypress Hills park for an annual star party weekend (where astronomers look at the sky at night and have cool talks and presentations on Saturday). Astronomers from all across the country take part, although most of them are from around SK and AB.

I went to this star party for the first time back in '98 with my good friend, Fr. Lucian Kemble, OFM (this is my second time at the party, & Leanne's first). For those of you who've never heard of Fr. Luc, he was one of my dearest friends whom I considered to be my first and only real mentor. He passed away in 1999 of heart failure, and he is still sorely missed by many, even by many of those in the astronomical field.

Leanne and I stayed in a nice but somewhat grundgy cabin near the park hotel, but we were comfortable enough. Much to my chagrin, Leanne flatly refused to sleep in a tent! But hey, our actual accomadations were only a small aspect of this awesome star party weekend!

For any of the viewers of this post who are courious about this star party and what goes on during the weekend, the next one is Aug. 24 - 27, '06. Check it out, if you like!

I totally had to get a pic of this. Come to think of it, I don't think that a lot of my poos are all that leisurely!
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A little plaque at the lookout point, describing the geological forces which created the land that the park is on.
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My honey-bun with the sprawling prairie behind her.
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Her honey-twit, likewise!
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Having a nice little mansion on the top of that hill would be so-o-o-o cool!
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No trip to Cypress Hills park is complete without at least one pic of the prairies taken from the lookout (I took a few, of course).
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A pic from the lookout point (Maple Creek is just above that little lake on the horizon).
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This is one of the better pics from the lookout point.

Here's Leanne standing beside my humble little reflector telescope, given to me by my step-mom. It paled in comparison to most of the scopes there, but I got it to work just fine (whew!).
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Nightime is coming quickly.
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Another pic of the campground (I was kinda hoping to see my ballerina shadow pose in this pic ;-).
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Here's a nice Dobsonian scope.
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This Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope is kinda like the one Fr. Luc used to use at the retreat centre near Lumsden.
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Another pic of the campground (night is approaching fast, judging by the length of the shadows).
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I never got a chance to see the monster scope under that orange tarp. Crap!
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Here's a sweet little reflector scope (kinda like mine, but nicer, and probably a fair bit more expensive).
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Some of these scopes need some pretty high tech devices to provide a little physical support.
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This Dobsonian (just a name for the design-type of the scope) has some tarp on it to protect the primary mirror from dust.
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Here's another pic of the same place.
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Here's a picture of the campground that was used for astronomers to pitch up tents and telescopes (the Meadows campground). This pic shows only a fairly small sample of the number of people who were using this campgound for observing.
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This is Ivan Semenuik who, up until recently, was the astronomy columnist for the "Daily Planet" show on the Discovery Channel. He gave the key-note talk titled "Seven Worlds In Seven Days - A Tour of the Body Celestial." The talk described the origin of why the days of the week are named as they are. It would have been cool to meet this fella and pick his brain, so to speak.
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