Southern Alberta Star Party 2025

Our annual Southern Alberta Star Party (SASP) was held this year from Sunday, September 21^st to Friday September 26^th at the Whispering Pines Camp just outside of the townsite of Elkwater, Alberta in the Cypress Hills park. For those who may not know, the Cypress Hills area is a designated dark sky preserve.

SASP started off on the Sunday evening with a complimentary BBQ provided by Eric Brown and family in cooperation with the company that he works for, Aldoria. We enjoyed a delicious BBQ of burgers and salads and relaxed and chatted. Our first evening started out promising but then turned cloudy.

Speaking of weather, late September weather in this region was beautiful but a bit breezy. The variable winds of daytimes would calm during evenings and rise again in the mornings it seemed, but overall, the weather was great.

Monday afternoon's sessions were delivered by Lukas Gorniesewicz on one of his eclipse expeditions, followed by Barry Olson delivering a science loaded presentation on the Viking missions to Mars and the latest in soil science results being delivered from a variety of Mars rover experiments. Very eye opening.

Monday night was a good clear evening, though a bit gusty and cool. Lots of astronomy was taking place.

Tuesday morning, the annual swap meet took place with much bartering. The afternoon presentation was virtual appearance over ZOOM from Dr. Alan Hale, one of the discoverers of Comet Hale-Bopp in 1995. This was an excellent and touching presentation that was riveting. After Dr. Hale, James Paulson delivered a presentation on ringed planetary systems and the ever-growing collection of systems being discovered that have rings.

Tuesday evening was yet another excellent evening of astronomy with lots of imaging taking place.

Wednesday’s presentation was our keynote speakers. First up was John Nemy with an absolutely amazing multimedia presentation that featured slow motion photography, beautiful music written by him, and a powerful story line that reminded us of our place in this vast universe. He was followed up by Ken Hewitt-White, astronomy author of Nightwatch, producer of the TV series called Cosmic Highway, and former director of the MacMillan Planetarium in Vancouver, BC. It was an amazing presentation taking us all over with his years of astronomy. Both Ken and John are two of the most amazing and humble people I have ever encountered in this hobby, and we loved having them as special guests and as friends at our event.

Wednesday night was yet another outstanding evening of astronomy and imaging.

Thursday’s speaker was Eric Brown of Aldoria with his presentation of the first year of operations with the MTOS space monitoring system located at Sunridge Observatory just outside of Medicine Hat. Following that were the draws for door prizes.

Thursday night was yet another excellent evening of astronomy, at least for a bit until it clouded up. Earlier in the evening a group of us went to the 12-34 Cafe for pizza and that is everyone in the picture above.

I want to acknowledge my friend and fellow club member Rod DeVries for his laser sky tour as well as his children’s program that he offered for the event. I want to acknowledge our club president and SASP committee chair Andrew Keeley for his tireless work in putting together the event, and for his presentations of Cosmic Highway during the evenings. And for all the volunteers who made the event happen.

Wildcat Astronomy (James Paulson) provided some excellent food to attendees of the event, with BBQ pulled pork and coleslaw on Monday evening, and beef brisket with bean salad on Wednesday evening. Mark Boody provided us with a treat of curried lamb and rice on Tuesday evening as well that was not expected. Everyone seemed to enjoy eating and socializing at the event. South Country Co-op provided complimentary coffee all week long once again this year.

Friday morning found us saying our goodbyes and cleaning up for yet another year with almost everyone vowing to return next year. I want to acknowledge all of those who helped us clean up, take down light coverings, red bulbs and more. Putting on this event is a lot of work, but as they say, many hands make for lighter work, and it is appreciated.

It was a real pleasure to attend this event and meet up with our many good friends yet another year. This is a hot ticket event, and being able to attend is not granted due to numbers, but if you really want to get in, visit our website at www.sasp.ca and use the contact form to get in touch early. I suggest contacting us by the first week of Spring.