RCA Dark Sky ‘Trial’ Star Party at SkyLark

By: Vlad Fedosov
10/09/2024

SkyLark

It was a hot day in late August 2024. It was the day of the first “trial” star party at SkyLark!!! SkyLark is the new observing site that my astronomy club the Rose City Astronomers recently purchased! 5 Acres in central Oregon under a bortle two sky. What’s there not to love???

For me coming from north of Portland the trip to SkyLark is a bit long at 4 hours. It is a fairly scenic drive that does help pass the time though. Once I arrived on August 30th I was tasked with clearing my own observing site of vegetation. Took about an hour to get my site groomed for the couple of nights of observing. Good workout! I hope that you like dust, as there is PLENTY of it. There are plans on putting in gravel which should really help with this.

SkyLark was an existing property of some amateur astronomers so did thankfully have a restroom and a small common room with a common open area under the roof to provide some much-needed shade in the summer.

Observing wise I brought out my new to me Losmandy g11g and the trusty AstroPhysics 155EDF APO refractor.

I concentrated on primarily observing some southern objects as I rarely have the opportunity to do this. Overall the observing conditions were nice at this star party and the site does provide some dark skies. There is some skyglow in nearly all direction(Bend, Prineville, and a large nearby warehouse contribute to this).

It was really cool to check out RCA’s new dark sky site: SkyLark for the first star party! Here are a couple of pictures and link to some drone footage I took to show off the new site! Thanks, RCA and all the members that made this happen!