1:00 p.m. Welcome to the 16th annual Enchanted Skies Star Party, Etscorn Campus Observatory. Camping at El Camino Real or Etscorn Campus Observatory opens. Registration Packet pickup 1:00-6:00pm at the Etscorn Campus Observatory.
2:00 p.m., Mandatory Meeting for all participants planning to go to South Baldy, Etscorn Campus Observatory.
5:00 p.m., Observing at 10,000 Feet -- atop Socorro County's South Baldy peak. Convoy leaves Etscorn Campus Observatory. See the About page for more information.
8:00 p.m., Observing at El Camino Real Dark Sky Site, Observing at the Etscorn Campus Observatory.
10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m., Registration packet pickup at the Etscorn Campus Observatory.
12:00 p.m., Carpool leaves Etscorn for the VLA Tour.
1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m., Insider's Tour of the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array Radio Telescope. Tour begins at the VLA site, 50 miles West of Socorro.
1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m., Worshops and Lectures at Etscorn Campus Observatory.
5:00 p.m., Carpool for GEODSS tour leaves Etscorn. Click for tour schedule.
NOTE: Participants taking this tour must provide their names and Social Security numbers in advance upon registering for the star party.
8:00 p.m., Observing at El Camino Real Dark Sky Site, Observing at the Etscorn Campus Observatory.
10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m., Registration packet pickup at the Etscorn Campus Observatory.
1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m., Worshops and Lectures at Etscorn Campus Observatory.
7:00 p.m., Keynote Lecture: Mark ‘Indy’ Kochte On campus, room 101 of the Workman Physics building.
8:30 p.m., Observing at El Camino Real Dark Sky Site.
8:30 p.m., Observing at the Etscorn Campus Observatory. This night is open to the public, we invite you to share your telescope with anyone who is interested!
9:00 p.m., Lecture: "Beginning Amateur Astronomy," Jason Speights, NMT Physics, Etscorn Campus Observatory.
9:30 p.m., Bill Spargo Memorial Lecture: "Learning the Constellations," G.B. Cornucopia, U.S. National Park Service. Etscorn Campus Observatory
10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m., Registration packet pickup at the El Camino Real International Heritage Center.
12:00 p.m., All events move to the El Camino Real International Heritage Center, all Etscorn campers must move to the El Camino Real site.
1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m., Lectures at the El Camino Real International Heritage Center.
5:00 - 7:00 p.m., Dinner is Served! Saturday Night chuck-wagon dinner at El Camino Real International Heritage Center. Southwestern music fitting of a chuck-wagon dinner will be performed live by Doug Figgs.
7:00 -9:00 p.m., Campfire Lecture: G. B. Cornucopia, U.S. National Park Service, El Camino Real International Heritage Center.
9:00 p.m., Raffle prize drawing, you must be present to win.
Stay for observing at the El Camino Real International Heritage Center after the Campfire Lecture!
Nightly observing from the Etscorn Campus Observatory (just outside Socorro)
Nightly observing from the El Camino Real International Heritage Center (~ 30 miles south of Socorro)
Drawings for numerous door prizes.
Solar observing.
...and more to come!
More events may be scheduled in the future.
The schedule is subject to change without notice, so check back before making final plans!
Born and raised in northeast Ohio, Mark ‘Indy’ Kochte received a degree in astronomy from the Ohio State University in 1987. In 1988 he joined the Hubble Space Telescope project at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, doing the acquisition, processing, and archiving of Hubble data. During his tenure on the mission he was afforded the opportunity to do some research in the studies of extrasolar planets, and helped define the evidence of an atmosphere around a planet in the star system HD 209458b. He also was heavily involved in the grassroots project UMBRAS, a spacecraft design that would enable space telescopes to actually visually detect extrasolar planets the size of Jupiter or Saturn. After 17 years with Hubble he moved on to the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer project (FUSE) as a Mission Planner, taking on the immense challenges of how to deal with a satellite that has only one remaining reaction wheel. In the fall of 2006 he was offered the opportunity to join the MESSENGER team at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab as a Payload Operations Specialist. After supporting two successful flybys of Venus and three exciting flybys of Mercury, he and the rest of the team are feverishly preparing for Mercury Orbital Operations. Throughout all this he has published a half a dozen papers on space mission design and mission operations, as well as co-authored a half a dozen additional papers on space mission design and science analysis results.
Not being an all-work/no-play kinda guy, in his spare time when not staring at the stars, Indy can be found out exploring the world we live in. In addition to having authored the rock climbing guidebook "Climb Maryland!", he is often out scaling cliffs from Maryland to Thailand, mapping cave systems in West Virginia, mountain climbing in Colorado and Washington, and diving for fossilized Megalodon shark teeth in the Atlantic. No moss gathers under his feet!