*LATE NOTICE* 2024 OCTOBER JD McCarty Center Camp ClapHans Star Party

LATE NOTICE 2024 OCTOBER JD McCarty Center Camp ClapHans Star Party

The camp is ongoing now and Sharla Bardin with JDMC is asking if anyone can come out this Friday Oct 18th (tomorrow!) or Saturday Oct 19th to setup for some stargazing for the kids.

The cloud cover will be about 20% on Friday the 18th, but the 19th is an OU home game in Norman so that makes things hard too. The game is at Noon, but still hard for anyone attending that to also make it out to a star party.

Sharla apologizes for the late notice… to be fair, she did mention there would be a camp in October but coordinating ahead of time was supposed to happen, but this is a new camp time for them this year and something new they are organizing for the kids that can’t make it to the camps in June/July.

If you can make it to either night, please post here. Right now I am leaning more to Saturday the 19th since the cloud cover will be better and it gives a bit more time, but I will not object to Friday if that works out better for most people. We have had worse cloud cover at other parties than 20%. :slight_smile:

I am telling Sharla to plan on Saturday the 19th and keep her informed.

If you can make it, please post here.

I will try to make it out there by 7PM. There will be a Full Moon of course, so that is always something the kids like to look at.


The McCarty Center is located at 2002 E. Robinson in Norman, which is to the East of Norman. The camp sessions are held on the JD McCarty Center campus in their camp area, which is a large open area with a few camp buildings away from the rest of the complex. There is good visibility to horizons in all directions, with moderate light pollution.

https://www.jdmc.org/www.jdmc.org/campclaphans

The camp is in the far South end of the JD McCarty campus, shown in the above link with a circular drive and a cluster of 3 small buildings.

We have been setting up to the North of the buildings, on the West side of the road, between the buildings and the outdoor bleachers.

Setup will start at 7PM with solar viewing early and twilight around 8:00PM. The kids should be off to bed before 10PM.

Standard star party light protocol/etiquette will be in effect for the most part. Planets, binaries, clusters, and other brighter objects (including the Moon of course!) have worked well in past years at this event.

Anyone with a telescope and who enjoys working with kids is welcome! There is plenty of space to setup and the kids will only have an hour or so after dark before they generally need to head off to bed, so multiple scopes looking at different objects works very well.

From Eileen,

For NSN:
Chris & Jean Petroff and I honored a last minute request for observing at the JD Mc Carty Center for Disabled Children’s Fall Camp in Norman on Saturday night, October 19th from 7-10 pm. We had scopes set up including my Seestar to view lots including the comet and the Waning Gibbous Moon.
kids- 12
adults - 18

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