Nebraska Star Party: The Stars of the Party

The stars.

I have put this post off because trying to describe those stars in words that adequately capture their grandeur escapes me.  So here is my best attempt.

If you wear glasses, do you remember that first time you put them on?  That whole fine-tuned world that suddenly popped into view? Noticing that trees had distinct, individual leaves?  That letters on the page were sharp and clear?  When before you had glasses you thought you could already see everything that was there, but you really had no idea what you were missing? 

Truly dark skies do that for the stars.  With only your naked eye, you see more of them than you ever thought existed.  They glisten and sparkle brighter than you thought possible.  And the whole sky is full of them, even down to the horizon because there is no glow from neighboring cities and towns to hide them. And when you look up and see all of that, you have to remind yourself to breathe. And you notice you have a tear streaming down your cheek because it's all so overwhelming, this magnificent sky of ours.

Telescopes like this one were set up for all to experience.

Have you ever seen the Milky Way?  The faint, milky white band of stars that paints across the sky and is part our own galaxy?  At home in Lincoln, I can sometimes make it out, and if I drive into the country it's usually a bit easier to see. But here at NSP?  The Milky Way is so bright that it casts a shadow.  When you face the Milky Way, you can look behind you and see your shadow. Indescribable. And you see distinct arms of the Milky Way as well, and you wonder how, before this night, you had never really considered that we live in the Milky Way's spiral galaxy.  We can only see the part that is overhead because we are part of it. 

With most telescopes, you can see detail on Mars and Saturn.  But with telescopes like Eric Balcom's you can easily see that Mars has polar ice caps, and as pointed out by young Sam beside me one night, "Of course, they are smaller right now because it is Martian summer."  Of course.

Linda recommends this as the best guide
for learning about constellations.

And, thanks to Linda, who lives in South Dakota and works for the census bureau, but spends a week at NSP every summer "to fill her soul," sharing her constellation talk, you can now find your way around the night sky. You watch for Vega, the first star overhead that is visible after twilight.  And then find Deneb and Altair, the three of them making up the summer triangle, which is your guide to three constellations, Lyra, Cygnus (the Northern Cross) and Aquila.  And then Linda tells you something that makes you anticipate Christmas Eve more than you already do:  While it lies on its side during the summer, the Northern Cross appears distinctly upright in the northwestern part of the sky at 10 pm on Christmas Eve.  A brilliant cross in the sky on Christmas Eve. How cool is that?

While Linda mentioned the adult version, I am
starting with H.A. Rey's book for 4th graders!

Then Linda, who closes each of her talks by singing Monte Python's Galaxy Song, uses her green laser pointer to show us the teapot of Sagittarius in the southern sky, complete with its pointy lid and steam cloud of star clusters. And she jumps to another part of the sky to show us Queen Cassiopeia lounging on her throne while her husband, King Cepheus with his pointy hat and block-shaped head is next to her. "Always reminds me of my ex-husband, who is also a block head," Linda chuckles. (Note to those of you who want to learn more about the sky without wading through so much advanced vocabulary - Linda's favorite guide to the constellations is The Stars, A New Way to See Them by H A Rey, who also penned the Curious George picture books.  My copy of both that book, and Rey's companion book for children just arrived today, and I love them.) 

Thanks in part to all of those light restrictions, as it gets even darker and your night vision ramps up, you notice the myriad satellites that are always in motion across the sky. And you see more shooting stars in one night that you've seen in your whole life.  Then Linda tells you how to distinguish a Perseid meteor from others (they always originate in the Perseid constellation - near our royal friends Cassiopeia and Cepheus - and travel away from it) and you see your first brilliant Iridium Flare flash across the sky. And you learn that a solar flare in 1989 "fried" a whole network of communication satellites that still orbit the earth, and when their antennae face the sun just right, a bright flash (the Iridium flare) bursts through the sky. Multiple times each night, with published schedules so you know where to look for them.  But you never knew to look.

And you suddenly realize that all the stars and planets practically race across the sky every night from east to west. Because when you look through Eric's telescope at those polar ice caps on Mars at 450X magnification, they disappear out of your eyepiece within a few seconds.  Because the earth is moving so fast. And you wonder how you never noticed that before.

And you try to think of how you'll describe this to people so they understand how magical it really was. 

And you are reminded of the creation story from the Bible:  Genesis 1: 14-18:  And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.

And it was good.

Nebraska Star Party: The People

The day before I was set to leave for the Nebraska Star Party, I mentioned the upcoming trip to friend and house cleaner extraordinaire, Tami as she finished shining up our kitchen counter.

Tami:  "Oh!  That sounds so awesome!  I would love that!  But I bet there will be a lot of nerds there."
Lynne:  "Yes, but from my experience at public astronomy events, they will be very nice nerds. So I should fit in, except for not being an astronomy guru."
Tami:  "Yes, you should!"

Organizer Eric during our after dinner
announcements, most likely reminding us
about lighting restrictions.

Both of us were right on target.  Attendees at NSP can best be described as Big Bang Theory meets Andy Griffith's Mayberry.  There are 75-year-old Sheldons and 12-year-old Leonards with more knowledge about astronomy in their pinkies than I will ever have in my whole body.  They can rattle off how many light years one celestial object is from another without a pause. The excitedly invite you over to view M81 and M82 from their giant telescopes that require their own transport trailers and a climb up a 10 foot ladder just to look into the eyepiece.  (No worries, I didn't know what M81 or M82 were either, but have since learned that they are favorite galaxies of many amateur astronomers. Yes. Of course they have favorite galaxies.  And nebula.  And star clusters. Don't you?)  :)

But NSP die-hards are also exceptionally kind and go out of their way to make everyone (even people who have never heard of Vega, which is probably akin to showing up for college composition class having never heard of the alphabet) feel welcome and valued while trying to help encourage a love for the night sky. They want you to succeed, just as Andy Griffith, time and time again, puts his knowledge and wisdom to work to explain new concepts to bumbling deputy Barney in a way that allows Barney to think he had known the answer all along.

One of the best things in life is to see people who have found their tribe.  Fans who don their accurate to the last detail costume to flock to ComicCon and hang out with other people who know comic strip characters as if they are real people. Hunters who eagerly anticipate opening day by gathering up all of their special gear soaked in deer urine to hide human scent, their new $200 camo pants from Cabela's, and their trusted rifle to kick off their annual deer hunting pilgrimage into the woods. Husker fans who count the days every year until they can spent a month's salary to gather with 90,000+ other Big Red faithful to cheer on their beloved football team with their Husker grills, and jerseys and school song playing car horns.  Tribes rock.

Even though I was just a visitor, I loved
being a guest member of the NSP tribe for a few days.

The NSP is a tribe full of people who share a common passion to study the sky and marvel at it.  To travel from hundreds of miles away to spend their summer vacations amid pit toilets and cacti just so they can set up their scopes to see more than they can see at home while surrounded by others who care enough to do the same.  They eagerly compare how many NSPs they have attended, with many only missing one or two, just as faithful Husker die-hards like to brag about how many games they have attended without fail.

This is not to say there weren't the normal quirks that come with collections of human beings.  The first conversation I overheard at dinner on Sunday night was a volunteer explaining that there are three groups of people at NSP.  The beginners, the nerds and, emphasized with an eye roll, "the astro photographers."  Apparently there can be tension between astrophotographers who need long exposure shots to capture those beautiful images of space that you've seen, and folks who are passionate about helping others learn the sky through pointing things out with green laser beams that also happen to ruin those photos.  But the photographers all settled in over the hill from Dob row, the laser pointers typically were only out early in the night, and it all worked out.

As an educator, it was absolutely delightful to see people from so many walks of life on fire to share with and educate others about the sky.  (Engineers, insurance risk managers, active and retired teachers, census workers and retirees are just a few careers I heard mentioned.) We full-time educators would be well served to cultivate their passion-fueled mission to teach others about the night sky, and apply it to our own content areas of expertise.

While I have great respect for the folks I met at NSP, I would be hard pressed to identify any of them other than my day time field school instructors, in a photo.  Even though we were a highly compliant, name badge wearing crowd. Remember those trusty light restrictions?  It is so dark on the viewing field, you really can't make out more than the general shape of the people you are standing next to. (Even that is somewhat limited since we're all covered in hats and jackets and pants to help keep those incessant mosquitos at bay.) So you learn to know them by voice.  Which is a new experience.  In normal social settings, all of us make decisions about how we will interact with people based on conscious and subconscious cues.  Eye contact, physical appearance, smells, etc.  But on the observation field at NSP, all you have is voice tone and inflection, along with evident content expertise, and the ever present scent of Off! to serve as the foundation of new friendships.  It made me wonder how life would change if we were all blind.

Jordan showed us how sailors used the sky to
navigate between Hawaiian islands.

College student Jordan Concannon, one of the few woman at NSP, was especially encouraging and helpful to me during my first night out on Dob row, where all of the big telescopes are set up. She patiently pointed out the spiral arms and bulge we could see in the Milky Way that night, and insisted that I climb the ladder before her to look into the largest scope at NSP, a 30" reflector from Omaha. Jordan is studying physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii in Hilo, one of the top observation locations in the world. As we were waiting our turn to view the ice caps on Mars, she told me should be giving a presentation on Wednesday afternoon about the archaeoastronomy of the Hawaiian islands.

Through our conversation, I told Jordan I was brand new to astronomy, and it was my first NSP.  I had noticed the topic of her talk in our program, and was looking forward to it. We also talked about my work helping educators best use technology, and she immediately asked me to please give her feedback on her presentation - "Anything.  Tear it apart.  Tell me what you liked.  The good.  The bad. Tell me what tools you know about that I'm not using! Tell me what I should change.  I want to always work to be better."  Wow.  What if we all sought feedback on our work with Jordan's courage and confidence instead of justifying current practices that might be inefficient or ineffective? What if we all lived and work in an environment where it is safe and encouraged to do that?

For the record, Jordan's talk was outstanding, and she had the audience in the palm of her hand.  And I told her so.  Even though I had to explain that I was the person she had met out on Dob's row Sunday evening who talked with her about ed tech, since we had never seen each other in daylight and I wasn't wearing my Off! soaked bucket hat.

Up next:  The last NSP report.  The Stars.

Nebraska Star Party: Beginner's Field School

One hallmark of the Nebraska Star Party is Beginner's Field School. According to our leaders, the NSP is one of the few star parties in the country that offer programming for people new to astronomy.  

My main takeaway from a 38-page single spaced guide book and 3 days of astronomy school? The sky is challenging to understand, and the tools we use to study it are complicated to master. And the volunteer teachers were absolutely dedicated to helping each of us develop a love for astronomy and to avoid costly mistakes as they placed their hands over their hearts and choked up while recalling the first time they saw Saturn through a telescope as a kid. And patiently explained focal length formulas.

Here is the Guido Sarducci version of beginner's field school, ala Lynne Herr: Don't buy a telescope.  If you are desperate to have some sort of equipment to study the sky, buy a pair of good binoculars.  But it would be best to just spend time looking at the sky with HA Rey's constellation manual (the one for 4th graders seems to be most accessible to me) or a planisphere to get acquainted with the major constellations. Once you have that down, visit your local astronomy club, look through their telescopes, spend time talking with them, and see if this hobby is for you.   

And remember Dave Knisley's Big 3 truisms, as formatted from our workbook on page 19: "A GOOD QUALITY SCOPE WILL BEAT A BAD QUALITY SCOPE", "APERATURE WINS", AND "SEEING ALWAYS GETS YOU IN THE END."

But here are a few other things I learned for those of you compelled to learn more, or to have equipment when you begin a new hobby.

Dave Hamilton (AKA Lincoln Dave)
teaches us about his reflector scope.     

There are 3 main types of telescopes.  

Dave and John discuss differences between
refractor and reflector telescopes.

Reflectors were the most common telescope I saw at NSP. They are large tubes - the larger the diameter the better - that collect light, bounce it offer a curved mirror in the back of the tube, and reflect it up through an eye piece that magnifies the image. Because the larger tubes can focus faint light from distant objects, they allow you to view objects in the sky such as spiral galaxies, nebula and distant star clusters. My $50 telescope I bought from Craig's List is a reflector.  Despite lots of help from Lincoln Dave and Beatrice Dave, I have yet to see anything of interest through it.  Although Beatrice Dave assures me that I will be able to see all kinds of valuable objects if I just upgrade to a $30 double ring focuser.  Something tells me he was just being nice.  Really, really nice.

Refractors focus light by bending it through a special two-element glass lens. From what I gathered, refractors are best if you prefer looking at fine detail of planets and the moon vs distant objects.  And to get a good one, you'll need to spend a lot of money. Refractors look like half of a pair of binoculars with a longer tube, and are probably what comes to mind when you think of "telescope." 

Michael wows us with his automated cadiotrophic scope.

And the roll-off-the-tip-of-your tongue Catadioptric (also known as the "Schmidt-Cassegrain" or "Maksutov") which is basically a hybrid of the reflector and the refractor, and when combined with a bunch of expensive computer components they can basically do all of the work for you in terms of finding objects in the sky, tracking them as they move across the sky, etc. Traditional astronomers appreciate what they do, but think you need to learn the sky on your own before you use one. Basically, it's like learning to read a map or jumping straight to a GPS.  If money isn't an issue for you, and you just want to see things in the sky that are on your list, buy this one.


Have I lost you yet?  This is where I started wondering if anyone would notice a 6-foot-tall woman in the upcoming children's program on Wednesday.  Stay with me.

Once you choose which type of telescope to purchase, you have to also purchase different eye pieces to use with it.  There is a lot of math involved in making these decisions, and you should probably plan to spend a lot of money. Generally, you have a few different eye pieces you would use when viewing an object through your scope. Each one magnifying the image a bit more, and thus viewing a smaller piece of the sky/object than the one before. Two full pages of our handout detailed various types of common eye pieces, but Plossls seemed to be the one mentioned most often.

The main lesson I got from this was knowing that one of the door prizes awarded after dinner that night, and described as "82 degree, Plossl, nitrogen purged" was an eye piece. There was also talk of Altazimuth and Equatorial mounts, theoretical differences between optical systems and focal length formulas but there were no door prizes that mentioned those terms so they must not be too important.

Binoculars are also an excellent tool to learn more about the night sky.  But it's not exactly easy to choose the right pair of those either. "Good roof prism binoculars are more expensive than porro prism binoculars, and not quite as light efficient as the porros, so porro prisms tend to be the ones most used in astronomical binoculars." Beginner's Field School booklet, page 11.  Hmmm.  Roof prisms.  Who knew? 

If you buy binoculars for star gazing, you definitely want the BK-4 glass over the BK-7, but we all know that, right?  

This is where I may have started looking out the window in the classroom and having flashbacks to high school physics.

We also reviewed Star Party Etiquette.  What's the number one rule?  You guessed it:  NO WHITE LIGHT AFTER DARK.  "But guys, remember.  If there is a medical emergency, you can use your headlights.  We understand. Do what you need to do." 

Lincoln Dave helped me set up my cheap-o telescope
and never made fun of it despite beautiful reflector set up
next to it.  

And, the one rule that makes me want to unite introverts everywhere around studying the night sky:  "Rule #4: Don't Tread on Me. Give other observers some space.  Don't assume that because this is a star party, the astronomer next to you really wants company tonight." 

While I found everyone at NSP to be extremely kind, helpful and welcoming throughout my entire experience there, Rule #4 excused my isolated camping spot, my lakeside lawn chair studio lounge and my waiting for others to join me at a dinner picnic table vs. sitting down with an already established group. And when we all circled our lawn chairs on the "Lincoln Hill" or the "Omaha Hill" or the "Indiana/Illinois Hill" to wait out cloudy skies, no one felt compelled to fill every space with conversation.  And all was right with the world.

Which is probably why the students at Beginner's Field School were the most attentive, inquisitive, well mannered group of students I have been around in a long time.  And the teachers, the most passionate. And I was honored to be among them.

Up next:  The People

Nebraska Star Party: Primitive Camping, Part 2

Lots of people have asked me, "What do you do during the day at a Star Party?"  

While most folks probably slept, I spent a couple of hours each morning sipping tea and appreciating the gorgeous sunrises and wide open skies. 

Turns out the sky has a lot to offer
during the day too!

My office/cafe/lounge near the lake.  

Happy hour for one.
Complete with citronella candle.

I also found a shady spot not too far from my tent with a great view of the water and my own little patch of white sand. It was a great place to cook lunch, write and enjoy the lake. When you are used to packing for a family, preparing to camp by yourself is blissfully unencumbered.  The NSP offers optional catered dinners for $10 each night, so I happily mailed in my check and figured I could wing the rest of it.  

Our garden is overflowing with tomatoes, onions,  swiss chard, summer squash and herbs so I loaded up a bowl of those, threw in a jar of lentils and a box of chicken broth and had 3 days of lunches covered.  A few extra fruits and vegetables, a bottle of lemon sparkling water (and one, tiny, flight- sized bottle of salty watermelon vodka), and I was set for camp.  

There may have been that one blazing hot afternoon, hypothetically of course, before I discovered the shade down the hill, that I may or may not have sacrificed 19% of my iphone battery to text this photo and message to my friend as an SOS of sorts:  This may or may not be my view as I lay here in my swimsuit top and underwear pondering life while sweltering in this tent to avoid the buzzing, biting insects that are plotting how to get in here.

That book?  Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.  If you want to write - write more, write better, write at all - you should read it. From page xii: "One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore. Another is that writing motivates you to look closely at life as it lurches by and tramps around."

Remember that whole pit toilet thing?  Well, there was a one seat wonder to serve about 250 people. And it was 300 yards from my tent, through a cactus minefield.  And it was apparently built before adequate pit toilet ventilation was perfected.  And I have a very strong gag reflex for smells.  So what's a girl to do? 

Improvise.  Use the leftover cup from Subway you found in the car.  Hide behind your vehicle.  Take the 10 minute drive over to another campground that not only has flushing toilets, but also coin operated showers.  It turns out you can wash up, brush your teeth and even do your dishes all for 75 cents during a 4 minute shower.  Who knew?!

You could also try not to covet the portable bathroom tent of your neighbor up the hill. In the only conversation that filtered down the hill, I heard a woman's voice say, "I just told him.  Pit toilets are a deal breaker. And he bought it."  

Suffice it to say, those whose anatomy allow them to pee standing up have a distinct primitive camping advantage. And while pit toilets might be a deal breaker, squatting beside your car in the dark, dark night while everyone is looking up at the sky and not at you, is not.

Up next:  The other thing you do during the day - Beginner's Field School.

Nebraska Star Party: Primitive Camping, Part 1

Let's be clear here.  I am not like Bear Grylls of the TV show "Man vs. Wild," who enjoys being dropped out of a helicopter in a remote region of the world to survive for a week on parts from an abandoned dog sled, a piece of parachute cord and six roasted grasshoppers. While not high maintenance, I do appreciate running water and flushing toilets.  And hot tea in the morning. And a cold wedge of watermelon on a hot summer evening.

But I also relish being fully present when the opportunity presents itself.

Folks who attend the Nebraska Star Party are provided a long list of lodging options ranging from the EconoLodge in Valentine, to a ranch-hosted bed and breakfast. And from air conditioned cabins at the entrance to the park to primitive campgrounds right next to the observation field.  

But preservation of the dark sky and your optimal night vision is of utmost importance to the NSP devotees, and one whole page of our information packet was devoted to preserving the dark skies while at NSP.  

Which means there are a lot of rules about where and when you can drive. Or even use a flashlight (which of course should be shielded with a red filter, or red tape you just happen to discover in your car emergency kit you got when you opened a checking account at West Gate Bank 12 years ago and have been hauling around ever since, even though every single screwdriver that is supposed to be in it to use to help adjust your telescope is mysteriously gone when you open it at the camp site.)   

So, being an anxious, first-born natural rule follower, I of course chose the option most likely to help keep me from unintentionally breaking the light rules, and to be in the middle of the action. Because the Star Partying doesn't even kick off until after "astronomical twilight" fades around 10:30 pm.  Past my usual bed time. 

Enter primitive camping.

Thankfully, I had practiced setting up my rented tent in our back yard the morning before I left for camp.  Which took me 5 minutes.  Easy peasy. Even with no instructions included. So I knew it would be simple, and that I could do it.

Every time I walked anywhere on the grounds,
I had to dig these off the bottom of my shoe.

And then I arrived at my beautiful, flat tent-pitching spot, stepped out of the Rogue and felt a sharp pinch on my right foot.  Without glancing down, I knew I either had stepped into cockle burrs or stick tights thanks to my extensive knowledge of Nebraska grasslands.  Wrong-O!  I looked down and saw this. Well, well! Prickly pear cactus!  Who knew?!  And they were hiding under the grass everywhere.  

But what's a few cactus thorns?  I had a tent to put up.

They even clung to my metal wheel well.

Unfortunately, I had been so distracted by the continual pinch of the thorns, I didn't notice until I unrolled the tent that the wind was blowing about 30 miles an hour.  It wasn't windy when I popped that baby up in the backyard the morning before.  So pleased with my tent assembly skills, was I that morning.  But... today was a new day.

As soon as I unrolled it from the bag, parts of the tent starting blowing away. Not even the cactus thorns could snag them. So I ran among the cacti, gathering up the parts, then weighted them down with the bag of tent poles, a rusty hammer and my two gallons of drinking water, while I regrouped.  (This is the point where you realize you are camping alone, and there is no Kevin there to look patiently at you and suggest you just go sit in a lawn chair, relax and enjoy the beautiful view of the lake while he gets the camp ready.)

So, I did what anyone would do in that situation. I cussed a blue streak. JK! (Just kidding.) I am not a swearer, despite coming desperately close on that windblown, cactus-filled, desert grassland last week. So, some of the choices that are available to us non-swearers ran through my head. Cry, pray, or give myself a peptalk topped my list of options.  Crying, while being a very real option, wouldn't have helped. So I said a quick prayer that must have God wishing for longer sentences since he has heard it so much from me:  "Please help me do this."  Then I started talking to myself: "Okay. You are just going to have to calm down here. Take a deep breath. You can do this."

And I did.

And even though it had a obvious lean to the south until those winds died down, and I wondered if the little tabs that I pounded the stakes through would stay attached to the tent or be pulled right off by the gale force wind, my tent was up and ready for occupancy.

And within the next 30 minutes, the wind was totally gone.  The sky was crystal clear. And my tent literally glowed in the sunset.

And I probably did too. 

Up next: Primitive Camping Part 2.  To keep from breaking all blog post length rules known to man, the food, beverage and pit toilet post will have to wait until tomorrow.

Nebraska Star Party: The Place

While some of you are familiar with the Nebraska Sandhills region, I want to include some details about the region to help friends who have never visited there understand what makes it special for both hosting a star party, and for feeding your soul.  

This map shows light pollution in the United States, ranging from the most polluted in white to the least polluted in black. It is difficult to find any dark areas in the eastern half of the US.  While light pollution is much less pronounced in the western half of the country, there are very few truly dark places (pictured in black vs. gray) left. (Once you've experienced the benefits of a dark region, it becomes clear why we should all be paying more attention to protecting dark places and working in our communities for outdoor lighting that cuts down on light pollution.) 

I've drawn a pink arrow near the center of the map to indicate the approximate location of the Nebraska Star Party.  Most of the dark oval near the tip of the arrow is over the Sandhills region of Nebraska, which sits over one of the country's most valuable water resources, the Ogallala Aquifer. There are very few roads in the region, and very few people as well. In fact, when I left NSP to travel to Kearney on Wednesday evening, I did not see another person or vehicle for well over an hour of driving. 

http://www.bigskyastroclub.org/images/light-pollution-us.jpg

The Nebraska Star Party is hosted in the most remote campground at Merritt Reservoir, which is next to Samuel R. McKelvie National Forest, and 30 miles from the nearest town - in any direction.  And that town is Valentine, population approximately 2700. It would be difficult to find a darker place to host a star party that is not on a remote, unpopulated island out in the middle of the ocean. 

And it's that total darkness that makes the NSP so special.  I was told about 350 people registered to attend this year, and many traveled from across the country to experience the dark skies of the region.

On the left is the road leading into the NSP observation field and camping area.  You can see some of the tents in the distance. When I first came over this hill on my way into the campground, I was reminded of a scene in Dances with Wolves where Kevin Costner crests a hill to see the tribal encampment below.  Except NSP folks put a high premium on personal space. Be still my quiet, peaceful, personal-space-loving, heart.

While we were allowed to set up camp in any area that was mowed, most campsites in my area were at least 50 yards apart. (This would prove to be important for other reasons that will be addressed in the primitive camping post.)  Despite being so far apart, it was so quiet at the campground that I could hear my neighbors zip and unzip their tent flap from about 75 yards away. Hypothetically, if I had accidentally pressed the panic button on my car remote while scrambling to throw my sleeping bag and pillow into the Rogue during a sudden lightning storm Tuesday night, they might have heard that too. In theory.

For the record, I didn't intend to set up camp quite so far away from my neighbors. When scouting out a place to pitch my tent, I was looking for a flat space, which was a bit hard to come by among the hills. In the end, it was perfect. What more could a solo traveling introvert who wants to read and write in her journal during the day and study stars at night ask for?

Up next:  Primitive Camping. Or how Lynne had to carefully weigh the need for food or water against resulting visits to the pit toilet while picking cactus thorns out of her tennis shoes.

Catalyst Brave Challenge 1: The Nebraska Star Party

I have always loved looking up at the night sky.  Knowing that people on the other side of the world see the same moon, the stars and constellations, and even the setting and rising sun, makes me feel connected to something bigger than myself.  


Since I first heard about the Nebraska Star Party (NSP) many years ago, I have always wanted to go. But I never seriously looked into it for several Very Important Reasons, including:

1. It's held on a primitive campground in far northwestern Nebraska in late July. That's a long drive from Lincoln. Riding long distances in a car is one of my least favorite things to do in life.
2. Primitive campgrounds have pit toilets.
3. It's usually blistering hot in Nebraska in July.
4. I don't like to sweat if I can help it.
5. Primitive campgrounds have no electricity to even plug a fan into during said heat blast.
6. I have never pitched a tent or camped alone.
7. I have never gone on a "road trip" alone that was not for work.
8. July is a busy month for those of us who work with technology professional development.
9. The annual school administrator conference almost always overlaps the dates of the NSP, and I don't like to miss any activity or event that might help support our schools.
10. I imagine the NSP is full of expert astronomers, and my knowledge of the night sky includes the ability to locate the moon, and, most of the time, the big dipper.  
11. Tim, our volunteer guide at the Rocky Mountain National Park public astronomy program earlier this summer, told me that the year he went to the NSP, grasshoppers were so intense they ate the coatings off the wires of his telescope battery. Ugh!

Well, you get the idea.  Despite knowing I would love learning more about the night sky, it was way out of my comfort zone so I never seriously considered it.

But, since the brave project is all about stretching out of my comfort zone, I included it as my first challenge of the Catalyst project:  Solo road trip, complete with primitive camping, to attend my first Nebraska Star Party, July 27-30, 2014. 

I packed up the Rogue with my $50 recently-purchased-but-never-looked-through Craig's List telescope, a rented tent and camp stove from UNL campus rec (both insisted upon by Kevin, for which I am very thankful), a sleeping bag, a self-inflating, 3 inch "mattress", a bowl of vegetables from the garden for meals, a big can of Deep Woods Off, a journal, my Nightwatch backyard astronomy guide and a bucket hat.  Had I known then what I know now, I would have also included leather boots, stronger mosquito repellent, tweezers to remove cactus thorns and a pair of binoculars.  

But even without those things, the experience turned out to be more wonderful, and challenging, and awe-inspiring and meaningful than I ever could have imagined. Too many lessons for one post, so the next several blog entries will be devoted to my experience at NSP 21:  the place, the people, the experience, the road trip, and best of all, the stars.

What activity or adventure have you always wanted to experience, but your Very Important Reasons have kept you from pursuing it?  What steps could you take now to make it happen?