...you make lemonade

My family and I (plus a couple of friends) went to SSSP 2007. It's my first dark sky star party I've ever been to.

It rained. A lot. My equipment got rained on (but fortunately, not the OTA). It was cold. It was windy. On the one night that it was clear, the wind was so strong I couldn't get my scope GPS-aligned properly. Then the alignment mark sticker came off and that was it, no more GPS alignments (I wasn't going to do manual align in the wind).

It was, in short, a horrible trip from the perspective of goals. I didn't manage to get any astroimaging done and now I have to wait for a good night so I can go out, manual-align my scope and re-mark the alignment marker.

After at least 2 hours of very frustrating alignment failures, when the alignment marker came off, I was really close to tears. I retired to the car and sat in the dark for a bit. I could bemoan all that's happened and gone wrong, or I could make the most of it.

I took out my star charts, my binoculars and did some binocular observing. Given the current condition of my eyes, I could see very little compared to my vision not 3 years ago. But the Milky Way was visible and I hit M31 both naked-eye and with binoculars - that was pretty much the only observing goal I managed all night. Regardless, it was *grand*. Later in the evening, I also had the chance to see M31 again but also its companions M32 and M110 in a 16" Dobsonian. I had a good time with my friend and the wife of the owner of the 16" Dob.

In a previous life, I would have chalked the trip up to be a failure. However, I don't think solely in terms of success and failure anymore. I had a good time with friends, learnt a lot that I can apply to future star parties and my sis and the kids had a good time. My only regret was that I missed out and going out with the kids to the local T-rex museum because I needed all the sleep I could get for the observing session.

I was surrounded by the splendour of creation that night, where photons from long-dead stars travelled for millions of years to finally impact my retina. Compared to that majesty, it put all of my concerns into perspective. I felt tiny, insignificant but oh so very fortunate to have had the opportunity to stand in that field and looking up. Y'know, all things considered, not a bad weekend.