Mark Force, from Peachland, sets up his telescope for nighttime viewing at the Mount Kobau Star Party on Friday evening. (Richard McGuire photo)
For the past week, an intrepid group of amateur astronomers has been camping at the top of Mount Kobau and gazing at the skies each night.
The Mount Kobau Star Party has been an annual event since 1984 and many of the participants, from the South Okanagan and beyond, return year after year.
“As much as we want people to hear about their universe and we don’t want to seem elitist, the Mount Kobau Star Party is not for everyone,” says Jim Failes, president of the Mount Kobau Astronomical Society.
Last Friday evening, when some local dignitaries were bused up the mountain and the Osoyoos Times dropped by, it was especially mild and not typical at the top of the mountain.
“This is an unusual night with this comfortable a temperature,” said Failes. “There’s not a strong wind at this time. The Mount Kobau Star Party will test your mettle. It’s for the hardy types who are really keen because it gets cold.”
As the sky began to darken, a sliver of a moon hovered over the western horizon with a tiny-looking celestial body, Jupiter, just above it.
Moments later, the thin moon dropped from sight. It’s no coincidence that the star party is timed so that the light of the moon won’t interfere with the stargazing.
The determined astronomers are obsessed with keeping any light from interfering with their activity. After 10 p.m., only red lights are allowed in the area.
Even the light of a cellphone is verboten. Those with vehicles who plan to leave during the night are told to park down the road facing away from the astronomers.
As more and more development occurs in the South Okanagan, light pollution is a growing concern for those passionate about viewing the universe beyond us. Mount Kobau is still an exceptional spot to see the stars.
“I don’t know anywhere else in this part of B.C. where you can drive to such an altitude and enjoy clear skies,” said Mark Force, of Peachland, who was setting up his Meade Lightbridge telescope, which uses mirrors to enlarge celestial bodies.
“The stargazing is awesome,” said Force. “It’s a mountain of course, so you pay your money and take your chances because you never know what you’re going to get.”
He was thrilled to be able to see every planet in the solar system on a single night, most clearly visible with the naked eye, and to be able to gaze into the Milky Way at stars in the process of dying or being born, millions of years ago.
Force normally uses his telescope in his backyard and says Peachland still has relatively dark skies. It helps that his neighbours are understanding and turn their outdoor lights off – a perennial challenge for stargazers in a world where people leave outdoor lights on for security.
Force says this year was about his sixth at the Kobau Mountain Star Party and he enjoys the group that participates, as well as the alpine environment, including the terrestrial attractions of beautiful views and wildflowers.
Failes, the president, from Kelowna, said he’s been coming since the star party’s inception in 1984, only missing one year.
The event, he said, was started by Alan Whitman, who got the idea from a star party in Texas. Star parties are common now, but at the time they were relatively unknown.
The Mount Kobau event, said Failes, has rules, but there’s a more casual atmosphere than at some other star parties. There are no vendor booths or reservation systems for assigned parking.
“We like to keep it all about observing the sky, except of course in the daytime when we’re fortunate to have one of the most spectacular locations to have a star party, where there’s hiking with vistas that are just beyond compare,” said Failes.
Participants don’t get much sleep. As soon as night falls, they are busy at their telescopes and they keep going until the first light of dawn.
Failes said he was up until 4 a.m. that morning before finally crawling into his tent for a few hours of sleep. By 7 a.m., his tent was already getting warm and by 8:15 a.m. he was up again.
The only year in the past 32 that Failes missed the star party was last year, the year the party was rudely interrupted by the horrendous Testalinden Creek wildfire.
Colleen O’Hare, from Kelowna, however, was there on Friday, Aug. 14, 2015, when the fire broke out down the mountain. It was the star party’s second last day.
It had been stormy that day, so the stargazers were already battening down. Some people from the group returned from Osoyoos and reported that the mountain was on fire and the stargazers probably only had about an hour to act.
“We made the decision right then and there to get everybody out because the road was going down the same side of the mountain as the fire,” said O’Hare.
There were still about 40 people on the mountain, she said, but the group stayed in contact with emergency personnel and B.C. Wildfire Service.
“We managed to get everyone down just in time,” said O’Hare. “We learned about the fire at 7 p.m. and the last people were down at the junction at 10.”
O’Hare said the descent of the mountain was scary and at one bend in the road the whole hill was on fire. Today the blackened tree spindles attest to the path of the flames.
This year the grass is green on Mount Kobau. And although charred trees are visible from the top, none of the vegetation where the star party locates was burned.
Suitably, the guest speaker Friday evening was Don Gayton, an ecologist who is an expert on the impact of fire.
Although the topic didn’t relate to astronomy, the stargazers and dignitary guests, including MP Richard Cannings and Osoyoos Mayor Sue McKortoff, listened intently.
By the time Gayton’s talk finished, the skies were lit up with billions of stars and a handful of planets. And the astronomers were back at their telescopes, ready for another full night of stargazing.
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
Don Gayton, a consulting ecologist and expert on the effects of fire, gives a talk at the Mount Kobau Star Party Friday evening as it begins to get dark. After his talk, participants gathered around telescopes to look up at the night skies. (Richard McGuire photo)
At the top of Mount Kobau there are areas destroyed by last year’s Testalinden Creek wildfire and other nearby areas that are untouched. The descending sun lights up the trees in golden light as participants at the Mount Kobau Star Party get ready for another night of stargazing. (Richard McGuire photo)
