Party Under the Toulouse Sky!

An Unforgettable Weekend: We Won First Prize at Ciel en Fête!

As promised, waking up this morning was pure magic! As I mentioned yesterday, we snagged first prize at Ciel en Fête yesterday afternoon! I had to pinch myself hard to make sure I wasn’t dreaming… Seriously, it goes without saying that we had an absolutely exceptional weekend! Huge thanks to Sofi and Dani for being such amazing hosts during these few days… The Ciel en Fête organizers did a stellar job, and I made the most of our three days there, meeting tons of people and soaking up as many talks as possible.

So, here’s a little recap of that fabulous weekend:

Friday, April 3rd: Arrived at the Cité de l’Espace at 3 PM and hit the exhibition floor. I immediately clicked with the awesome folks from the Urania 31 astro club (Siegfried, Didier, Daniel, Gilles, Antoine, Laurence, Marcel, and Patrick). Down-to-earth, friendly people, just how I like ‘em. We chatted for quite a while and kept bumping into each other throughout the weekend. I hope I get to meet up with them again sometime under a beautiful starry sky, or at least around a good meal! One of them, Siegfried, takes some seriously stunning photos with an EQ6 mount and a 250mm Skywatcher Newtonian.

Next, I checked out the Cosmodiff booth and discovered the CGE Pro mount – it looks seriously robust!

Continued my tour at the Coupoles Val de France booth. Philippe Mignon kindly gave me a detailed rundown of his hinged dome observatory range. His domes are beautiful and blend seamlessly into their surroundings. Plus, they’re easy to assemble and disassemble if needed (like for a move…). His entry-level model is around 4500€, making it relatively accessible. Philippe chose to offer only hinged domes, which means they’re not easily motorized and might not suit all situations. I’m particularly thinking about remote control, a topic I’m deeply interested in right now. It’s a choice, and he had to make one, and there’s definitely huge potential for this type of dome: astronomy, animal observation, guest room… uh… Several colors are available: Green, Ochre… but also any other custom color. Philippe comes from the automotive world, and it shows – his fiberglass domes are as sleek as beautiful car bodies. So, good luck to Philippe; he’s doing some really impressive work, and it deserves to be said.

At 4 PM, I attended a conference with Eric Mouquet, who was presenting his Rent a Sky project. Eric, besides being the creator of the group Deep Forest, is, in my opinion, one of the best French astrophotographers, and his project is simply unique. He built two observatories on his property and now allows people to rent time slots for remote use of his telescopes: a 400mm+ RC and a Taka FSQ106. Both on Paramount ME mounts. Seriously impressive gear that he’s making available to the public via the internet and the custom software he had developed for remote control. Big surprise at the conference – there were only 7 or 8 of us. This made for a super friendly and intimate atmosphere.

At 5:30 PM, a conference with Alexandre Lambolez on amateur solar observation. Alexandre showed up with a coronagraph about 3 meters long! That’s how you start strong… The talk turned out to be super informative, and I especially enjoyed the part about modifying a PST for adaptation at the focal plane of a large refractor. His system is quite out of the ordinary; we’re used to seeing setups based on ERF filters online (which are relatively expensive), but his solution is elegant: replacing the ERF filter at the aperture with a helioscope (homemade in his case) at the focal point. The helioscope is a small mirror that rejects 96% of the energy out of the tube as light and heat, thus retaining only 4% to feed into the modified PST’s BF5 filter.

9:30 PM, Eric Mouquet’s “Deep Sky” concert, featuring Deep Forest music under the starry dome of the Cité de l’Espace planetarium! We had a moment of pure bliss. It was a first for France, and I was thrilled to be there.

Saturday, April 4th: In the morning, a book signing session with Hubert Reeves…

We spent the entire day at the Cité de l’Espace. The whole family had a fantastic time.

On my end, I attended the following talks: 11:30 AM, “Asteroids and Stellar Occultations” by Michel Boutet and Jacques Sanchez. Another way of doing astronomy that didn’t 100% convince me. Setting up all that gear at 2 AM to observe a stellar occultation by an asteroid that will only last a few seconds, and then timing it with a stopwatch for the most precise measurements possible… that’s just not my jam. However, I totally get the scientific value of this type of observation. To each their own, I guess; it’s just not mine…

3 PM, a meeting with Laurent Laveder. It was while chatting with Laurent that I realized he was the author of the book “The Sky - A Garden Seen from Earth.” So I bought the book and got a rather amusing dedication. Thanks, Laurent, your photos are superb, and the layout is beautifully done!

4 PM, Jean-Luc Dauvergne presented the conference “Test Your Observation Instrument.” The talk was interesting because it delved into the details of certain optical phenomena that can degrade image quality in different types of telescopes. I really enjoyed this conference because I learned so much!

8 PM - 11 PM, lights out at Place du Capitole, in the center of Toulouse, for sky observation through various types of telescopes. Urania 31 was, of course, there. They set up several telescopes for public viewing. Other amateurs also came with their arms full of gear… I particularly enjoyed observing Saturn through a 560mm Dobsonian. Quite a beast! We arrived a bit late for Hubert Reeves’ speech, though. Too bad…

Sunday, April 5th: In the morning, I took a quick stroll through TROC ASTRO (the astronomy swap meet) where I picked up a used eyepiece: a 2” Meade Super Plossl 56mm at an unbeatable price. The eyepiece is like new; I’m thrilled with my find!

Next, I got to test out the Takahashi TOA150 on an EM400 mount with a thermoregulated Daystar H-alpha filter. Two delicate prominences were perfectly visible, despite the current low solar activity. Pure artistry!!!

11:30 AM, “Building a 940mm Diameter Telescope” conference by Marc Rieugné. Marc and his dad are two ‘madmen’ of astronomy. They’ve already built several large-diameter telescopes, but the creation of this 940mm monster is a true human adventure. Everything is oversized: the mirror, the grinding machine (built over a year), the dome, the building itself… In short, hats off to you gentlemen; you command respect.

2:00 PM, the draw for the top ten prizes of the Ciel en Fête contest… and then, magic happened! My father’s name was drawn last, meaning he won the first prize – it was hard to hold back the tears!

A little later, a photo session for Astronomie Magazine, then a very joyful drive back home. The prize will be sent to us; it wouldn’t fit in the car!