Step back in time with Stuart Atkinson as he revisits the star parties of yesteryear and reflects on how things have changed since the 1980s
Like every science, astronomy evolves. Each new telescope and planetary mission changes what we know. And the pace of that change is quickening. It seems that every month a once-beloved theory is scrunched up into a ball and tossed into the bin, as a new image or observation renders it out of date. But that’s okay. That’s how science works, and it’s one of the reasons astronomy is so exciting.
Amateur astronomy changes at a quite dizzying pace too. The equipment and resources we have available today – for a price, of course – would turn the amateur astronomers of a few decades ago green with envy, or maybe make them accuse us of witchcraft. To fully appreciate how much things have changed, you just have to go to a gathering of amateur astronomers – a star party.
Star parties are observing and social events for amateur astronomers. They are very popular and held regularly across the UK and indeed all across the world. They’re not only an opportunity for amateur astronomers to escape from their light-polluted local skies and enjoy a dark, starry sky at an out-of-the-way location, but also to see and use equipment they can’t, and perhaps never will, be able to afford. Typical modern star parties now have such concentrations of electronics and computers that they almost have their own gravitational fields.
Life and soul of the (2024) party
Star parties are also family events now. Children attend and enjoy events and activities during the day, hopefully tiring them out before nightfall. And although amateur astronomy was certainly a male-dominated hobby in the past, today you’ll find almost as many women sky-watching at star parties.
Imagine you’re at such a star party right now, as darkness is falling. Figures begin to emerge from caravans, tents and mobile homes to stand beside the equipment they’ve set up during the day. Telescopes are high-tech wonders of metal and glass covered in so many wires and leads they look like
they’ve been doused in spaghetti. Bathed in the pomegranate-red light of their owners’ head torches, the scopes turn this way and that in the darkness
