The Julian Starfest is a major Southern California astronomy event, featuring a free public star party on Saturday, tours of the Palomar Observatory, astronomy supplies and vendors, astronomy guest speakers and presentations, a giant raffle with $7,000 worth of give-aways and four days of camping and astronomy.

Camping area at the Menghini Winerty, Julian Starfest

With plenty of room at the winery to spread out we had enough space to accommodate all four of our imaging rigs, complete with computers, workbenches and Fat Maxes (our super efficient, ultra compact tool chests). Our compound was flanked by the travel trailer on one side and two tents (for the adventurous) on the other. Plenty of room for our gravity chairs and binocular sky tours in the center, while our rigs were up and imaging all night.

Julian Pie Company

We pulled in Thursday just after 3:00 pm when camping registration opened. We picked our spot and got set up. The first night was perfect with clear skies that got pretty dark. Friday was overcast all day and it never let up, the night was clouded over, even raining on us a bit throughout the night. And good thing we stuck it out because Saturday night was again perfectly clear and dark (though very damp and dewy). I’m not a good judge of what is dark or not (and we’ve had much debate about Anza vs. GMARS, etc.) and Jamie didn’t think Julian was as dark as GMARS – and I disagreed. We were tempted to get a dark sky quality meter to start taking regular measurements of our locations – this tool would be a helpful tool to aid in our ongoing debate. All-in-all, we had two great nights of astronomy.

Craig Stark speaking at the Julian Starfest

Craig Stark from StarkLabs (author of Nebulocity, PHD Guiding and DSLR Shutter) gave a great talk on SNR (signal to noise ratio), similar to his series on Cloudy Nights, and detailed the differences between cameras for astro-photography. He also spend a few minutes with us discussing, and helping solve an ongoing debate about ISO settings and its impact on SNR. Look for more MBS stories discussing some of the Stark topics like increased aperture and its affect on SNR, and how single-shot color cameras differ from monochrome cameras.

We’re all good friends with Keith, Chris and Craig at OPT (Oceanside Photo and Telescope) so its always fun when we get to spend time out in the field with these guys. Check out Chris’ newest images on his website. OPT is one of the big sponsors of the Julian Starfest and they have a giant booth in the vendor village. In fact, this has become quite an event for all of us to do some “shopping.” This year Harvey bought his new CCD camera (Orion Starshoot Pro) and was like a proud poppa when he unpacked the box. Ippei was close to making his final decision on a new imaging OTA, but the OPT guys sold the last one in stock – right from under his nose. Jamie finally got his wide field imaging rig completed when he attached his camera ball head adapter (manfrotto 486) to his Celestron CG-4 mount, complete with hand-crafted, hardwood dovetail. This ended up being used by everyone for wide field imaging right off the camera – it’s awesome! And don’t worry, if they don’t have what you need at the OPT Booth – they call the store and have someone bring it up, THAT is customer service at its best! I finally got a new HoTech centering 2″ camera dapter, deliverd to Julian from the store (did I mention OPT is awesome!)

With all of our new gear, the great food, the heated debates (360º capabilities, dark skies, Gaysted, breathing in the particles once you can smell them, etc.), the apple (and berry) pie, the ice cream lady, Bridgette, Ippei’s new truck (really a big help packing in all of our gear), Sea Breeze and the Millionaire Mile – We even got the chance to meet a few guys from the SoCalAstroPhoto group, and chat a bit – The Julian Starfest 2009 was a huge success!

Look for updated images from everyone under the MEMBERS tab.

We loaded all four of our Stanley Fat Max gear boxes into Ippei's truck.

Planning our strategy over breakfast in Orange County before heading out to Julian, CA

We stopped for pie at the famous Julian Pie Company

Setting up our campsite - astro-imaging center - and saloon. Four telescopes, four computers.

Our first feast of many - BBQ steak sandwiches.

Santa Ysabel Casino, just a few miles from Julian, CA - we went for the $4.95 Prime Rib Dinner! And some of us like horseradish more than others.

Jamie, testing his new personal dark adapted eye protection system. Now he can use the bright light from his computer monitor to light his work area - and still protect his own eyes - Patent Pending.

Harvey studying the manual for his new Orion Starshoot Pro - just picked up from OPT booth in Vendor Village.

Ippei and John conducting highly technical binocular comparison testing ... complete with vodka drinks.

All you can eat chicken quesadilla Mexican breakfast - note: three is too many.

Brian and Jamie posing for a quick portrait in town - Julian, CA

Harvey won this great piece of framed art in the raffle.

Nightfall at the Julian Starfest 2009. The milky way is setting over our campground.

Camping at Afton Canyon Campground was great (April 26, 2009). It’s about 30 miles northeast of Barstow right off the 15 freeway.  It was super easy to find and get to. You pretty much take one turn off of the 15 and drive about 15 minutes and run right into the campground.

Afton has been called California’s Grand Canyon. That’s a pretty bold statement, but it was interesting and nice too see so much variety in a Southern Californian landscape.

Unique to this area is the Mojave river that flows above ground right next to the campground.  You can see the river’s power as it slowly carved its way into the the surrounding hillsides.  A wonderfull sight is to see is the lone headlight of a Southern Pacific Railroad train speeding through the  dessert darkness. Just as soon as it lights up the bridge it will disappear back into the horizon from where it came. It reminds you how Jedediah Smith once crossed these same lands.

Astronomy-wise it was darker than Joshua Tree and the Riverside GMARS site. There were small light domes to the North from Las Vegas and to the Southeast from Barstow, but they were  small and not bothersome at all. It was pretty windy in the day as it was everywhere else the week we stayed there, but we were treated to great weather on our second night as the winds came to a stand still at midnight.

We lucked out and picked the first spot as you enter the campsite. This was a long thought out decision. We figured most campers would want to go deep into the campsite so we stayed on the outside. We were correct since the campsite became about 80% full and our side was the furthest away from campfire lights. There were a couple of campfires, but our site sat a little lower and there were some surrounding bushes (probably a scorpion lair) that protected us from the stray light. Playing 80′s rap music also helped keep people from venturing too close to our site.

Overall it was a great site and we had lots of fun. There were some mishaps, but those all count towards having an advenuture!

*we had to walk back a belligerent drunk to his campsite. Once again proof that not everybody can party like us . . .

Fueling up at the Flying J in Barstow

Getting Close

Afton Road Exit

Going the right way

Looking back towards civilization (the freeway)

The road in

Arrival

The campsite

The traditional drink upon arrival

The bridge over the Mojave River

Getting Dark

Campfires light the Canyon

A nighttime train passes by

Daytime adventure. This road . . .

or this road. This looks safe let's do it!

The end of the road, and begining of our peril.

Cave in the distance

The last thing we looked at before digging out our car for 3 hours!

Image from the trip - M13 Hercules Globular Cluster