Okie and Tex have arrived a day early at OTSP 2025!
Let the fun begin tomorrow at 0700.
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Okie-Tex Star Party starts tomorrow. Here is Okie and Text waiting your arrival. Once you get here you can use this post to load some of your images.
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OTSP 2025 HAS STARTED!
I don’t know if there was a parade of RVs right at 0700 or not, as I was still asleep. I think at least one big rig woke me at it passed by at 0715.
After thunderstorms on Tue and Wed, everything dried out quickly and last night was near perfect. Clear skies, almost no winds, and temps in the low 60s/high 50s. I captured the Bubble Nebula with my Origin:
Sadly the forecast= is not as good for tonight, partly cloudy. Tonight is our public night, where we invite all the local folks in to see what all these folks passing by their houses to get here are actually doing out here.
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Took this last night after most of the Okie-Tex setup work was done. Barnard’s Galaxy and Little Gem Nebula.
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Here is our setup. Only picture from last night. Had a rain shower and wind came in. I heard it cleared up around 2am.
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A rain shower Dave? I love your optimism.
I’m not trying to scare anyone away, but it was a bit more than a rain shower, IMO. Winds probably in excess of 45mph and about 3/4" rain in about 20 min. I heard somebody with a portable met station recorded winds at about 55 mph.
The Norman North kids were probably hit the hardest. I heard about half their tents are unusable. I think they’re staying one more night then heading home a day early. The new building became a temporary refugee camp overnight.
No injuries that I’ve heard of thank goodness. Lots of tarps and covers blew away. At least one windscreen turned into a sail and hit an RV. Maybe some telescopes blew over, but I haven’t heard of any that were damaged badly.
It was quite a bit stronger than the storm that hit Wednesday night, but everyone I’ve seen today has been very cheerful about the experience. And it won’t affect us observing the universe! Tonight is predicted to be clear all night long, then Monday and Tuesday partly cloudy, and Thur/Fri/Sat nights are predicted clear all night.
A mere thunderstorm will not stop us!!
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Sorry to hear about the weather, but thanks for the updates. Interested to hear stories about the event.
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Saturday night was our first Okie-Tex experience! My son and I had only a single night this time but we will plan better next year. Despite our “exciting” departure just before the storm hit, we had fun meeting nice people and getting a few pictures. Plus, we woke up at 5am to see if the skies cleared, and we spent about an hour amazed at the dark skies just east of Boise City on our way back home. I stacked some untracked photos on my Nikon Z6 of Orion and Andromeda Galaxy, and I was pleased with the result given so few exposures. Next time we will plan to stay longer.
I also tried a timelapse video of Clouds and the Milky Way. It started out well until I had to cut it short when the storm approached!
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I’m sorry you couldn’t stay at least thru tonight, Mike. It’s great viewing right now. I like your pic of the Milky Way/Andromeda, and the video of the clouds.
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Love the photos of the set-ups, as well as the astronomical feats!
Weather looks to improve all week. Keep the day and night photos coming, please!
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Looks like rain to about 2200 tonight. Then cloudy all night. Sunny all day tomorrow, then rain from 1800-2400.
We’d & Thur clear all night. Then Fri-Sat cloudy again.
The weather is very on and off this year.
Very nice indeed.
The last two evenings have been cloudy and rainy, but thankfully none of the 3 fronts that moved through between 1800-midnight last night were that severe. Forecasts for tonight and tomorrow night are clear, though it’s mostly cloudy, chilly, and blustery right now.
Yesterday was a beautiful day so I decided to hike to the Oklahoma High Point on Black Mesa. It was perfect for hiking. It’s an 8.6 mile round trip, mostly fairly flat with a 500-600 climb and descent to the top of the mesa.
Today was cleanup morning. This is about the first time I’ve had when I wasn’t doing other things, so took the time to sweep out my trailer and organize it a bit. I’ve got my Celestron Origin mount and tripod in the windscreen, under a tarp. OTA in the car. I set up my other smart telescopes to the left in the picture as needed. They’re fast to set up and take down. The Origin, not so much.
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My buddy Craig and I arrived on Saturday afternoon for our first-ever star party, setting up camp just in time to watch the storms roll in. Those wind gusts were insane! We really struggled to keep everything from blowing away during the storm, holding onto our tents and the EZ-Up as best we could. While we succeeded in at least keeping everything somewhat together, both of our tents suffered damage, and everything got wet. The EZ-Up sustained enough damage that this trip was its last shade assignment.
After cleaning up and securing the site following the storm, we both ended up sleeping in our respective cars, still wearing wet clothes. Sunday morning, after a quick assessment of the damage, we decided to stay and do our best to dry out and get the camp set back up, aiming to get some imaging that evening. With ample quantities of coffee, duct tape, zip ties, and sunlight, the tents were salvaged, and by early afternoon, we had dry (enough) clothes to change into, and things were looking pretty good all things considered. Fortunately, we didn’t suffer any significant equipment damage. Our neighbor to the west wasn’t as lucky; his scope took a tumble, resulting in a broken OAG (the camera mount sheared away from the base) as well as a broken computer mount. He packed up and headed home as a result.
By Sunday evening, it felt like everyone was back in their groove; people were out getting their equipment ready, and a buzz of excitement filled the air as dusk approached. When anticipating this event, this is what I had envisioned, and especially after enduring the prologue, it was neat to have finally experienced it.
I had made major changes to my equipment for this trip, so I was expecting to spend a lot of time getting things dialed in. I think this was the first time I had actually set up under the stars in nearly 8 months, so I was also a bit rusty. However, I was able to get some imaging accomplished before the clouds rolled in early Monday morning. I wasn’t able to complete a full LRGB_ha set, but what little I got (L + some R) looks promising, and I’ll hopefully be able to finish out the M33 image I was working on with data from CRO in the coming months.
Monday morning, after fueling up with caffeine and making the rounds to check out all the other rigs, we realized the weather wasn’t looking cooperative for the next couple of days. Thursday looked great, but with storm chances on Monday evening and a couple of days’ wait, we decided to pack up and head back home.
The weather was a bit unfortunate this year, but it sure provided a memorable trip for us. Thanks to everyone involved for making the event happen! The hard work and dedication are abundantly evident, and I’m already looking forward to my next one. However, I’m thinking a trailer or RV might be a better strategy for dealing with unpredictable weather.
I’ve attached my work in progress (L only) of M33:
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