Stargazing Fun

Dennis Mammana & Steve Benton show guests the moon

In 2012 the first IVDM Stargazing party was the event that showed our community’s interest in the museum and launched the museum we’ve been working so hard to produce.  This Saturday was going to be another major Stargazing party.  Having heard about last year’s party since I got here, I was really glad I was going to have the chance to be at this one.  We were going to have Dennis Mammana, a professional night sky photographer, come and do a talk on the moon (Saturday was the first night of the full Cold Moon or Wolf Moon for those of you keeping score), people were bringing their telescopes out, and the event was advertized far and wide.  The museum is in a great place for stargazing as there is very little light pollution around us.  The windmills glowing red night lights make things a little weird, but now that the Texaco behind us has closed down we don’t have to deal with its’ bright sign and we get a really great view of the stars in three directions. 

Starting Tuesday Jessica, Jacob, and I began cleaning the museum from top to bottom and watching the sky.  Ocotillo’s weather is usually very predictable: sunny and warm, alternating sunny and windy.  In winter there are a few weeks of sunny but cold.  Since we were having an outdoor event Murphy’s Law kicked in this week and we had heavy clouds the entire week.  Normally not a problem, and at times even a nice change of pace.   But the closer we got to Saturday, the more worried we became.  Thursday made things worse by being the first time since I’ve moved here that it rained. All.  Day.  Long.  People called and asked if we were still planning on holding the event and we said yes.  After all, the lecture was indoors, and people could at least come out to hear a talk, eat some cookies, and check out the museum.  We cleaned like crazy and tried to keep thinking positively: it WOULD clear up for Saturday!  All day Saturday was cloudy but by the time people started arriving at 6pm things were looking up.  By 6:30 we had the first beautifully clear night sky we’d seen in a week!

The event was great.  Over 80 people attended, lots of them kids.  Many people were seeing the museum for the first time, others hadn’t been back since the party last year and were amazed at how different the building looked!  The talk was great, and accompanied by some gorgeous pictures of the moon that Dennis has taken over the years- the sorts of pictures I try for with my little Nikon point and shoot and will never, ever match.  Three large telescopes came out and everyone got the chance to see the moon up close, as well as a few of our favorite constellations.  I got to see Jupiter and 4 of his moons through our treasurer Steve Benton’s impressive set up.

Steve Benton sets up his telescope as the sky clears and the moon rises

To give the kids other options we had arts and crafts in the library and Neal Hitch and I did our coiled clay set up in the future archives lab.  I lost count of the number of kids that came to play with clay but it felt like at least 20 of all ages.  Several of them got into the spirit of making pots and competing with Neal to see whose pot would be best.  Others just wanted to play and made clay dragons, dice, little hearts with “joy” or “love” carved into them, and generally just had a blast.  I have no idea if they learned anything about coiled clay pots from the evening, but they did learn one thing that we say here every day: we are the most fun museum ever.

Clay dragon fun