3 months and a few days from the 38th Annual DSSG - Maybe

Thanks Joe for your suggestions.

It has now been almost 3 weeks since my last post. We are now just about 2.5 months out from the start of the 38th Annual Deep South Star Gaze. If we can hold the Deep South Star Gaze doing so will make us the oldest annually held star party (without a break) in the United States. That will be an achievement that we can all be proud of. There are other astronomical events that are older - Stellafane, the Texas Star Party and the Riverside Telescope Makers Convention; however Riverside held their last event in 2019 and then folded, and both Stellafane and the Texas Star Party cancelled. Stellafane had cancelled before during World War II and the Texas Star Party began 1 year before the DSSG. So, once again, if we do a DSSG this year we will have the longest streak going. (Other events like Okie-Tex, the Nebraska Star Party, Peach State, El Dorado, the Mid-South and a host of others all began after our first DSSG in 1983.)  We were contemplating cancelling in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina, but we went ahead on a shortened schedule and it was one of our best with beautiful weather.

Certainly I cannot guarantee that we will hold the DSSG this November, but as of right now we will. Our host, Carol Nicaud at White Horse is more than willing to have us come and she will be making every effort to keep us safe. I would however be deceiving all of you if I said that there is nothing to worry about/nothing in front of us to make us take extra precautions. We will need to do that because of COVID 19. The subject has been beaten to death so all I will do here is to post a link to what is on the El Dorado Star Party website. Requirements there that have been put in place because of COVID 19. As we move closer to our start date of November 10th, we will tweak our recommendations but I am sure that our recommendations to help keep all of us safe will look much like the El Dorado Star Party recommendations/requirements. eldoradostarparty.org/coronavirus-and-esp/

As of now I know that we have regular DSSG attendees that are not likely to attend because of COVID. Some have told me that they are waiting for a vaccine, some are concerned because of their age and/or co-morbidities that they have. They may also feel that given restrictions the star party will just not be the same. We realize that. It will not be the same. Given the situation I think we will be lucky to hit an attendance of 30 to 40. (We had 9 at the Spring Scrimmage.)

The lower attendance in some ways is a good thing, we can spread out more, both outside and inside. Our lower expected attendance and the abundant areas to set up at White Horse may have some appeal to others that have never attended a DSSG event. I am going to promote it on "CloudyNights" in an effort to get a few more attendees. I am going to focus on those that have not been able to attend other star parties this year because virtually all of them have cancelled officially. (Some were unofficially held at the same venues, with far smaller crowds.) I am also going to promote our low horizons and dark skies which are virtually on the Bortle 3/Bortle 4 boundary.

Something else that will be different will be the fact that I am not going to solicit vendors for door prizes. With the lower attendance, and with virtually all other star parties being cancelled, and most importantly, the fact that their businesses have been off, doing so is not appropriate. What I will do is I will write to all of them and thank them for their past support. I will clearly explain that we are not asking for support this year. If they want to send catalogs, price sheets, etc., that will be great, but no prizes. Thanks! Thanks! Thanks! for their past support. Hopefully things will normalize for all of us in 2021.

For those that think this means that we will have no Prize Give-Aways, think again. We will, we have a small collection of purchased prizes, mostly eyepieces, ready to go. I also have some very lightly used/new condition books that I will donate along with other prizes. We will have prizes!

Something else we will not have this year given the current state of affairs is a registration fee like in past years. It will be greatly reduced. It will basically be a place holder to hold your reservation.  We will likely cap the headcount when we approach the maximum number that I believe we can safely handle, likely no more than 30 that need bunks. (We can handle more - those staying in tents, campers, rv's and those staying off-site or just coming up for the day and early evening.)

A lot to think about and I appreciate getting questions to respond to, so ask away. Hope to see some of you between November 10th and November 15th.

Barry Simon

I’m just here looking for the sign up sheet and a waiver.

For me, it's too early to tell. Although I'm not in as deep of a recovery mode as I might possibly have been, I still need to be careful. That said, if I'm convinced it's sane by deadline-time I'd like to attend if possible. Too soon to say right now...