Local astronomers organize 32nd annual Enchanted Skies Star Party

Starting October 14 and running six days, regional astronomers in the Magdalena Astronomical Society collaborated to host the 32nd annual Enchanted Skies Star Party (ESSP), an educational event that drew over 130 enthusiasts from across the country.

An unexpected feature at this year’s ESSP was the participation of internationally recognized astronomer Dr. Marc Buie from Southwest Research Institute. Dr. Buie was among the leading members of the team conducting the recent New Horizons flyby mission to Pluto and later to the remarkable newly discovered, very distant double-asteroid object named Arrokoth. Buie was drawn to attend this year’s ESSP because it was organized to feature “occultation science,” a specialty of great interest to him, and a field that can engage backyard scientists in serious astronomical discovery.

This year was the second in which ESSP enjoyed using the Montosa Ranch campground located only eight miles away from the center of the VLA radio telescope.

The location featured very dark skies that are a principal attraction for the participants. The site also has a comfortable chapel building used as a lecture hall. The combination of amenities at the Montosa campground is the most ideal setting that the long-running ESSP event has ever enjoyed. The lecture hall, particularly, allowed an expanded program of distinguished speakers including both professional and amateur astronomers to share on a wide range of topics. Dr. David Levy, the co-discoverer of the famous Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 that crashed into Jupiter in 1994 – drawing world-wide attention in the process – was among the keynote speakers. Participants were grateful that staff from the VLA turned off lights that normally illuminate the Array’s central area. This accommodation made the environment at Montosa Ranch even better.

Occultation science involves the alignment of celestial objects in the sky, similar to eclipses of the Sun and Moon. Of particular interest at ESSP was the situation of faint asteroids in our solar system being able to pass in front of much more distant stars, thus briefly making the starlight disappear. Recent major improvements in our knowledge of the positions of stars and asteroids make predicting such events much easier than ever before. The motivation in watching such events is that considerable information can be learned about asteroids, such as their size, shape, and even that they sometimes have their own small moons. This research can be done as simply as by using small telescopes and video cameras set up in one’s backyard.

It can, of course, become much more elaborate. Dr. Larry Wasserman of Lowell Observatory described how seeing the most interesting occultation events can involve traveling to far corners of the world. Drs. David and Joan Dunham, featured speakers at ESSP, are founders of the long-established International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA) that now has an endowment of over $1,000,000. After sharing the stage with Dr. Buie in presentations meant to encourage more participation in occultation observations, the Dunhams hosted a more specialized and technical workshop on the subject in Magdalena on the Monday following ESSP. Video conference technology allowed nearly half of the workshop participants to be virtual.

Like previous years, many other presentations offered information about how to photograph the sky, a topic of great interest to typical star party participants.

Among speakers were nationally recognized expert Dan Llewellyn returning from Georgia; Dr. Robert Q. Fugate, retired as the founding director of the U.S. Air Force Starfire Optical Range in Albuquerque; and retired software engineer Lee Maisel, a new resident who, like many others, has moved here to live under local dark skies. Larry McHenry traveled from Pennsylvania to speak about famed American astronomer Edward E. Barnard, a pioneer of early astrophotography. Dr. Richard Fienberg, another new New Mexico resident who is retired as editor of Sky & Telescope magazine and press officer of the American Astronomical Society, shared an overview of infrared astronomy.

The Enchanted Skies Star Party is commemorated in a signpost monument on the southeast corner of Socorro’s Plaza. This year’s participants were especially pleased to see the return of Jon Spargo and Dave Finley, both retired from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. They, with considerable involvement from the whole Socorro community, were the founders of ESSP in 1994. Returning this year, they reviewed the early days of the event that included participation by New Mexico’s Moon-walking Apollo astronaut, Dr. Harrison Schmitt. Spargo and Finley were very pleased to see the event’s continuing momentum and its attention to preserving local dark skies, as exemplified by Dr. Albert Grauer’s presentation, he being a driving force in the creation of Catron County’s Cosmic Campground as a certified International Dark Sky Sanctuary. With an increasing number of people coming to New Mexico specifically to pursue astronomy, often relocating here in retirement to do so, local dark skies represent a valuable economic driver that is not being ignored. Local real estate agents are very aware of the phenomenon and specifically left schedules open during ESSP to facilitate showing homes to participants while the event was running.