Connecticut Star Party 2021

Last year, CSP was cancelled because of COVID, but this year we held a modified CSP on the weekend of September 10-12, 2021. The event consisted of Zoom presentations on Friday evening and a night of observing at the Ed Strang Scout Camp in Goshen CT on Saturday. The two speakers on Friday evening were Pete Kandefer and Kristine Larsen, who were also presenters at the very first CSP in 1991.

Below is Chris Predom’s account of the weekend events:

Friday’s Zoom meeting was very informative. It started with Pete Kandefer talking about exoplanets, followed by Kristine Larsen talking about our local star, the Sun. Pete started from the early years of exoplanets up to today’s and future outlooks of looking for earth-like planets. How the use of astrometry helped find the early planets by use of wobbles in proper motion of a star or a slight radial change to the light we received from a star. Later, measuring the drop of light output as a planet transits across the star led to determining orbit size and the size of the exoplanet. Up to current spacecraft observing thousands of stars in select areas for transits. Kristine’s talk was on surface features
observable on the Sun. Sunspots and what causes them to solar prominences and flares. The sunspot 11-year cycle and its effects or lack of effects on the earth. She mentioned that there is a AAVSO solar section that monitors the Sun by amateurs like all of us. If interested, search in the AAVSO web site for the solar group for information on how to contribute. The talks were followed by Greg Barker with group photos of all CSPs, where we tried to name the folks in the pictures.