Andy Steere's
Astrofest 1995 page
ASTROFEST 1995, sponsored by the Chicago Astronomical Society, was held at a 4H camp near Kankakee, Illinois on September 15th through the 17th, 1995. This starparty is a favorite of our astronomy club and we have a long history of attendance there.
The photo above is a composite of a part of the observing field. One of the nicest things about Astrofest is GREEN GRASS! This year had a dry summer and the grass looked pretty burnt compared to previous years. The very high traffic area from which I took the picture makes it hard to tell. You can download a large version of the photo by clicking on the image or the caption below it.
For a good part of the weekend I helped two friends and fellow club
members, Val Germann and Dr. Mark Russell, man a booth to promote their
new business... AstroQuest. I managed to sneek away a few
times and took a couple of pictures.
AstroQuest's main activity this year was an Optical Quality Survey. This
telescope is a pair of identical 8" f/6 Newtonian Reflectors custom built
by AstroQuest for this survey. Identical with the exception of the quality
(figure) of the primary mirrors. This telescope was used during the 1995
Riverside Telescope Makers Conference and the research continued at
Astrofest.
AstroQuest's second activity was to be the first to have a mirror making
demonstration that the PUBLIC could participate in! Here is Val Germann
getting the ball rolling on the "AstroQuest Barrel 'O Fun". A number of
people tried their hand at it... and all left feeling they could do that!
A small donation of time to help keep the ATM community alive.
AstroQuest actually brought a second telescope... this 12.5" f/4 "Planetary
Newtonian" mounted on an old StarLiner mount. (YES, I SAID
F/4!!!) Early Saturday night, before the clouds took over,
we had some of the best seeing conditions I can remember at AstroFest (also
known as "AquaFest").
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The telescope above was "Kicking Refracter Behind!!!" according to several who took a gander through it. Even though Astro Physics brought a bunch of expensive glass, including an 8" APO Refractor,... they all paled in comparison to how this telescope was performing. We even had a certified refractor addict state that this was "the best view on the field"... and that it was "better than I have EVER seen through my AP 6" EDT". This is what AstroQuest is all about.
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No major Star Party would be complete without it's vendor and swap-meet areas. Astrofest is no exception.
As previously mentioned... Astro Physics had a good selection of their premium
refractors for people to look at and through. Included were a 8", a 7", a
6" EDF, one of their new Mak-Newtonians, and a couple of smaller scopes.
JSL had their line of equatorial newtonians. Nice compact system.
A number of other commercial vendors were also peddling their wares... but I didn't get a chance to take pictures of them. Sorry to them... maybe next year.
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A number of Amateur Telescope Maker" (ATM for short) telescopes were there. These are but a couple of them.
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Last modified on 03/28/2001
