Star party

Tonight we attended the annual Astronomical Barbecue and Star Party up at our local community college, Cerro Coso -- it was sponsored by Cerro Coso and also had something to do with the China Lake Astronomical Society, which normally sponsors star parties each month from March to November. I have been wanting to go to one of these star parties ever since we moved to Ridgecrest. What a great use of the phenomenal night sky we've got out here. But it never seemed possible, what with baby twins and all.

This star party sounded more do-able -- for one thing, food was involved. And since it's getting dark earlier, we could see some stars and be home by bedtime. Still, we dithered.

Last night when we were talking about it, I was googling astronomical things and I came upon a mention of Jack Horkheimer's death in August. I don't know how I missed that before -- well, yes I do. Jack Horkheimer died of a lung ailment on August 20th, the same day Rocket Boy went into the hospital with his own lung ailment. We were not paying a lot of attention to the news for several days there. But I was so sad to read about Jack's death last night.

Maybe that's the reason we finally pulled ourselves together to go to the star party. We didn't buy tickets in advance, just drove up to Cerro Coso to give it a try.

Cerro Coso is a small, but oddly constructed school -- I always get lost trying to find my way around. The "astronomical barbecue" was held on the lawn between the library and the main school building. The ticket-sellers looked at us and the boos and decided to charge us for only 1 child -- $25 total.

We took our tickets and went to the food line. The ticket-taker was not happy that I had 3 tickets for 4 people, even when I explained that it had not been my idea. I offered to let the boos split a hot dog, but she just shook her head grimly. We ended up with 4 enormous plates of food. Rocket Boy and I both had massive tri-tip sandwiches, even though we don't eat beef. Cole slaw, beans, chips, cookies. Greedy boos stuffed their faces with chips and cookies, then sampled their hot dogs and beans.

The Cerro Coso Community Band played throughout the dinner -- outer space-related pieces, mostly. Boos, who still don't quite understand how orchestras work, stared open-mouthed at the musicians.

Sitting at our table in the cool evening air, eating a large beef sandwich, listening to the band play the theme from Star Trek, I had a great sense of well-being. I was so glad we'd decided to come.

I bought $5 worth of raffle tickets, to make up for not having paid for a 4th barbecue ticket, but we didn't stay to find out whether we'd won anything. Instead, we started walking up the hill to the Observatory, for the star party portion of the evening. Boos began to complain about the hike, but fortunately just then a couple of golf carts whizzed up to us. Members of the Cerro Coso baseball team were ferrying people with "mobility issues" to and from the Observatory. Baby A and I climbed into one cart; Rocket Boy and Baby B boarded the other; and we whizzed up the hill to the Observatory.

At the Observatory there were several telescopes set up so that you could look at different parts of the night sky. One huge telescope was pointing right at Jupiter and you could see THREE MOONS around it, plus the shadow of another moon on it. That was cool. That made my night right there. We tried to get the boos to look through that telescope, but I don't think they understood that they were looking at Jupiter. They like to look at Jupiter with their naked eyes, but how to explain that the object in the telescope is also Jupiter...

Last night when we were out for a walk after dinner we saw a bright object in the northwest sky and wondered whether it could be Mars or Saturn. But according to the China Lake Astronomical Society's column in the local paper, Mars is low in the south southwest sky, and Saturn is visible just before sunrise. So tonight I spotted that same bright object and asked one of the roving astronomers about it. "That's Arcturus," he told me.

Oh, of course. Arcturus. That rang a faint bell in my mind.

"See the Big Dipper," he pointed out. "Follow the arc of the handle over to Arcturus. And then below it is Spica."

"Arc to Arcturus! And speed on to Spica! Oh, I remember Jack Horkheimer teaching us that!" I got a little choked up, remembering that Jack Horkheimer won't be teaching us anything else ever again.

But the stars and planets and other "evening objects" are still out there, and here in Ridgecrest we can see them all. It's exciting to think that we get to teach our little twins all about the night sky (I will be learning right along with them).

As Jack would say, keep looking up!