As the familiar saying goes "It never rains, it pours". And it certainly did in the days leading to the Annual Star party held on the 17 November at Dave Gordon’s small holding in Blue Hills. A record breaking 170mm of rainfall has tumbled down during the month of November. It seemed that the chances of seeing stars (and the Leonid meteor shower) on that night were approaching LottoŽ odds.

Well, we all should have taken tickets that night because we did see stars!

The enthusiasts started arriving at around 4pm to a partly cloudy sky but the promising glimpse of sunshine. Tables and chairs were arranged on the lawn and braais were prepared. There was much joyful banter around such topics as indigenous trees, global positioning systems, telescope mounts, sun pillars, homemade radiation chambers . . .

Just as the fires were ready for cooking, heaven’s watershed opened yet again.

This just served to bring the party of about 35 star-hopefuls closer together as we huddled under the eaves, cooked, prepared meals and continued our lively debates.

Sharon Tate spotted two red stars on the horizon. In fact, she insisted they were red giants: alpha Vodacomei and gamma MTNus. They were well placed for observing on rainy nights; low in the horizon and only 5 degrees apart.

As tummies filled with food, the rain eased and the occasional star peered through the hazy but slowly clearing night sky. Some people departed but more folks arrived in the hope of glimpsing something stellar.

At around 10:30 pm Bruce Dickson arrived with his 12" LX200, gleefully proclaiming that he had seen a star in Orion from his house … maybe even the whole belt … and there was a chance! As we prepared his telescope, unbelievably the skies cleared to a magnificent vista of stars. The seeing and transparency was surprisingly good for a short time during which Bruce treated us to some magnificent views of Jupiter and Saturn using his 14mm wide field high magnification eyepiece. He exclaimed that the Great Orion Nebula (M42) was gorgeous this night with superb definition and even hints of colour.

By now, Dave Gordon’s 10" LX50 was commissioned and running a tour of Jupiter, Saturn and NGC 253 (edge on spiral galaxy in Sculptor).

Midnight, and still more people arrived! The enthusiasm for some star gazing and the expectation of a good Leonid Meteor shower was wonderful. Hot coffee and biscuits … astronomers fuel …. we were all set and ready for the show!

"Oh no! I’ve got dew on the corrector plate" growled Bruce. "It’s no wonder I haven’t been able to focus my telescope for the past 10 minutes" Dave responded. No problem, a hairdryer to the instant rescue.

About that time some party goers arrived at the wrong address. Coincidently, there was a birthday party happening on the same road, but different address. As they were given directions, they peered curiously over shoulders at a bunch of people huddled around two rocket launchers waving hairdryers at the barrel-ends!

While we were beating the dew on the telescopes, we failed to notice the enemy creep quietly above and over us and deprive us of our joy. Clouds! How could this be? We fought a gallant battle of cat and mouse with the clouds but they finally tired of our game and closed over completely. It was 2 in the morning and we felt great that we had, at least for a short while, beaten the weather odds and stolen some precious observing time.