Author: Liam Kennedy

The October 18th Anza Star Party brought wonderfully clear skies, although it was a little chilly and windy.

I was accompanied by my 14-year-old grandson, Owen, who is now quite the accomplished amateur astronomer - having become adept at using my 8" LX90 and Seestar at numerous public star party events in the Temecula area (where we now live).

We walked the site just before sunset to take it all in and see who might have shown up at the Football field to set up for their night of observing.  Only one member was there, and we chatted about their project to image every Messier object using their Seestar.

Evident across the entire site was the result of the extensive fire mitigation work done over the past few months. That's happened because of the hard work of the OCA board and their careful management of the Anza site.

I was running the Kuhn Observatory and had the pleasure and honor of re-training a star member in the updated control system. I hope to support more of that Star Member training and re-training going forward.

The views from the 22" Kuhn were some of the best I have ever seen. The seeing was good enough for 330 power viewing of Saturn / Neptune, and Uranus. We also perfectly split the Double Double and could see each double star at 200x power. 

There are TWO star parties in November (15 and 22). I'll be operating the Kuhn Observatory on both weekends.

I hope to see more of you there!

Below are a few photos from the star party to give you all a sense of what you missed (if you didn't attend).