Dear Attendees,

Greetings everyone. Welcome to 2024!

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 those who don’t know, Adin supply is now owned by Chris and Inga Kerry, both of whom are on the GSSP board and took up residency in Big Valley several years ago.

As for registration, our prices remain the same as last year.  Although we are not planning to put COVID caps on attendance, we ask that you use common sense.

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’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.

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.

Regards,

Rich Ozer

GSSP Director