Welcome To The First Annual Driftless Zone Star Party,.
We
have been doing Star Parties for many many years, But our original site
sadly has become like a lot of the country far too light polluted for
us to continue holding them at the original location. So the Hunt Was
On!
First, we researched in the area between Chicago, and Minneapolis, using all of the various light pollution maps we could find, We Overlaid the best image we could obtain onto a standard area map to actually see where the sole dark zone really is located. This narrowed our search for a suitable site to a single location as seen on our front page.
This has taken us years to make this a reality. Now obviously we knew we wanted the Star Party to be in that blue area, The Darkest area between Chicago, and Minneapolis but where? That is the part that has taken us years to make happen. Any public land was either not in the "Dark Zone", or even though the location was in the "Dark Zone" the location still had too many local lights that the owners of the lights were not willing to have shut off for the event. Or just simply the properties were un-suitable for telescope use, like in the bottom of a huge valley where most of the sky just was not even visible.
Till we found one willing farmer!
Through a local science teacher, who we were planning one of our Near Space Sciences "Edge Of Space" Flights.
He had a brother-in-law with a LARGE farm that just happened to be inside the "Dark Zone" He contacted him and he said sure!
We plan on having two parties this year,,
One originally was planned to happen during the prime weekend for a Messier Marathon, March 16-17, 2007.
But sadly this "Prime" weekend has been "SNOWED OUT" by the largest single snowfall this area has had in many a year!
So it has been re-scheduled for April 20 and 21, 2007.
And if this goes off well, another ten day long event in August. Why is this called the "Driftless Zone Star Party"?
First, we researched in the area between Chicago, and Minneapolis, using all of the various light pollution maps we could find, We Overlaid the best image we could obtain onto a standard area map to actually see where the sole dark zone really is located. This narrowed our search for a suitable site to a single location as seen on our front page.
This has taken us years to make this a reality. Now obviously we knew we wanted the Star Party to be in that blue area, The Darkest area between Chicago, and Minneapolis but where? That is the part that has taken us years to make happen. Any public land was either not in the "Dark Zone", or even though the location was in the "Dark Zone" the location still had too many local lights that the owners of the lights were not willing to have shut off for the event. Or just simply the properties were un-suitable for telescope use, like in the bottom of a huge valley where most of the sky just was not even visible.
Till we found one willing farmer!
Through a local science teacher, who we were planning one of our Near Space Sciences "Edge Of Space" Flights.
He had a brother-in-law with a LARGE farm that just happened to be inside the "Dark Zone" He contacted him and he said sure!
And this site is indeed incredible!
Way up high on a ridge, almost true horizon the full 360 degrees around, and not a single light to be seen!
Below is a scaled down thumbnail of the horizon, Click on it for the full sized version.
Way up high on a ridge, almost true horizon the full 360 degrees around, and not a single light to be seen!
Below is a scaled down thumbnail of the horizon, Click on it for the full sized version.
We plan on having two parties this year,,
One originally was planned to happen during the prime weekend for a Messier Marathon, March 16-17, 2007.
But sadly this "Prime" weekend has been "SNOWED OUT" by the largest single snowfall this area has had in many a year!
So it has been re-scheduled for April 20 and 21, 2007.
And if this goes off well, another ten day long event in August. Why is this called the "Driftless Zone Star Party"?
Click HERE to learn why.