“There’s one!”
"I missed it!" "I see it!" "Wow!"
It's not every day a conservation group opts to show off a new piece of property by inviting people to come visit in the dark of night, but periodic exclamations heard late Sunday night and early Monday morning in the woods of Baldwin county seemed to bear out the Weeks Bay Foundation's strategy for introducing supporters to its Alta Fish River property.
The foundation acquired the 60-acre tract in May. It sits south of Bohemian Park, which is on County Road 48 about six miles east of downtown Fairhope. It includes more than 3,000 feet of river frontage on a stretch that Yael Girard, the foundation's executive director, has described as being especially popular among kayakers.
The tract is part of a "corridor of conservation" that the foundation is developing along Fish River, one of the main tributaries feeding into Weeks Bay and the Weeks Bay Reserve south of Fairhope. To show off the new acquisition to supporters, foundation leaders hit upon a new use for it: as a site for "star parties" to view active meteor showers.
The first of these was held Sunday night in conjunction with the ongoing Delta Aquariid shower. (Astronomy site earthsky.org describes this shower as a diffuse one that peaks at the end of July but continues for several more weeks.) Attendance, at least for this test run, was limited to about 50 people and judging from the chatter at the scene, about 30 were in attendance. Admission was free for foundation members, $20 for nonmembers.
What they got, after a short trek down a lantern-lit path, was a relatively open patch of sky near a pond on the property; a supply of snacks and soft drinks; and the opportunity to look at Saturn and other attractions through a telescope set up by NASA Ambassador Jamie Ellis. The lack of lights, and the distance from nearby communities such as Fairhope, made for reasonably good viewing even if surrounding woods did limit the overall panorama.
Compared to the library-like silence of some starwatchers it was a chatty event, which made it clear that this was an all-ages crowd that included some aspiring young astronomers.
"It couldn't have been a nicer tight out, with the temperature and the clear weather," said Girard. She said the highest meteor count she heard was from one participant to claimed to have seen 15 over the span of a couple of hours.
Girard said the low-impact event was a chance to further the foundation's goal that the tract should "always be a place for public access and education and recreation."
Several more star parties are planned, though exact details haven't been finalized. Tentative dates are Aug. 12 or 13 for the Perseid shower, Oct. 21 or 22 for the Orionids and Dec. 13 or 14 for the Geminids. "The Geminids especially can be a really impressive shower," Girard said.
For information on these and other events, such as the upcoming Pelican Paddle kayak race on Saturday, Aug. 3, visit weeksbay.org.