Greetings everyone. Welcome to 2025!
Once again, we are grateful for all the assistance we receive from the Big Valley community, especially Adin Supply, Frosty Acres and the Big Valley school district.
For the first time in a long time, we had to raise our prices. Last year, we were caught in a flurry of last minute rising insurance costs; what used to number in the hundreds of dollars inflated to thousands. This not only threatened the financial health of our event, but also forced us to reduce services to a bare minimum. Were closing the cap with a small rate hike this year and hopefully we’ll dodge any additional insurance drama in the coming year.
The easiest way to plan your GSSP trip, and to help GSSP plan this event is to pre-register on line. This helps us with site planning and communication with our attendees. It also saves you money.
It’s no secret that half of amateur astronomy is now represented by astro-photographers. In the past, we’ve informally relegated night photography to the outer “north” portion of the event grounds (which we call the Oort-cloud). Although we still encourage astro-photographers to use that area, we will continue with the expanded “dark enforced” area near the hospitality tent to include all of the Jupiter and Saturn rows. Photographers may use this area, but will be expected to cover all of their lights including shielding laptop screens, taping over LEDs, and minimizing the use of headlamps. We received complaints about light leakage in 2024, and we really need everyone’s cooperation in this regard to prevent recurrence in 2025. If you have a “smart-telescope”, please plan on setting up as far as possible from the big-dob visual observers.
A bright exposed red light is nearly as bad as a white light. Photographers who use computers should purchase red plastic covers for their screens (Tap-Plastics), and surround their computers with a box pointed away from other observers. LED indicator lights should be taped over if not necessary for functionality, and flashlights or headlamps should be red and dim. The staff do not want to have to police this policy throughout the event, so we ask your full cooperation in advance.
For the rest of the field, even in areas with families and beginners, we ask that only dim red light be used. White lights are really a nuisance for everyone and we ask that they be left completely off or fully masked.
Motorhomes over 20′, in general, will have the south and south-west areas available, but starting halfway down the field we will have car and tent camping only. When you arrive with your motorhome, a GSSP volunteer will assist you in finding a location and orienting the vehicle. Of course, this is all easier to see than read. So please stay tuned for when we post our current site diagram. Note that sprinter vans are allowed in the general observing and camping area, but we expect you to be considerate of neighbors; those things are tall. Please park your sprinter at the ends of the rows and not smack in the middle.
Again, we will ask all registrants to let us know if they intend to bring dogs. Those attendees who are bringing a dog will receive an email or letter re-stating the rules related to pets (namely leash, cleanup, and noise control). The letter will state the consequences of not following these rules and the document will need to be signed and turned in at the gate. Since we instituted this policy, all our dog owners and dogs have been awesome! This policy seems to work and we’re happy to invite your well behaved pets.
We all thank you for your continued participation in GSSP and hope you have a great time. Please feel free to contact us with any concerns or questions.
Rich Ozer