Welcome to Observing the Deep Sky from the Chiefland Astronomy Village and the Billy Dodd Observing Field.
Astrofest 2023
Food, fun, a raffle for many door prizes, a swap meeting, and meeting many old and new friends. With over 80 people attending Astrofest and a couple of clear nights for observing and imaging, we had a good start for our annual Astrofest.
With a wonderful clear first night and a few hours of clear skies on the second night, we enjoyed the dark skies and deep-sky splendors.
Joe and Gay Haldeman spent all day making sure everybody gets their registration information and their astro travel tumbler.
Astrofest would not be the same without our traditional picnic. Thanks to all the volunteers for helping set up and cook the food.
Prof. Amy Williams gave a fascinating talk on NASA’s Mars Exploration Program.
Dr. Jerry Cheney showed us not only the beauty of planetary nebula but also explained their astrophysical origin.
Ken Verderame’s presentation showed us how even dim deepsky objects can show impressive detail when using a night vision device.
Prof. Hal McAlister, the former director of the Mt. Wilson Observatory, gave a fascinating presentation about zooming in on the Stars from Mount Wilson with astronomical interferometry.
Thanks to our sponsors for the many door prizes.
Spring Picnic 2023
Food, fun, a swap meeting, and meeting many old and new friends. With over 50 people coming to the spring picnic and many spending the night observing and imaging, this years Chiefland Spring Picnic had a wonderful revival.
We had some nice clear skies with the Lyrid meteor shower peaking that weekend.
Plenty of food, drinks, and deserts.
Our International Dark-Sky delegate Leeann Muszynski educated us on the latest efforts to darken our skies.Meeting many new people on a beautiful spring day.
Inspecting a refractor at the swap meeting.A happy new owner of a nicely restored microscope.
Spring picnic at night from Chiefland by astrophotographer Bill Williams. For more of his wonderful work, see https://www.williamsseaandsky.com.
Angel Nebula M-W 2 Integrated Flux Nebula in Ursa Major.
Widefield image of the Lagoon and Trifid complex in narrowband/LRGB.
Summer Milky Way over Chiefland.Bill and Vicki Janda visually studied many galaxies in Leo Major and Canes Venatici.
Astro-imager Curt Morton imaged galaxies M106 and NGC 3521 with one-shot color CMOS camera.
