Announcements

The upcoming Deep South Star Gaze for 2024 is rapidly approaching. This fall will be the 42nd edition of our event first held back in 1983 at Percy Quin State Park. The Deep South has been held at 4 different venues over the years and this will be our 7th at the White Horse Christian Retreat Center.

As most of you know, the dates this year are Tuesday October 29th to Sunday November 3rd. This will be the 6th time over the past 42 years where our dates included Halloween. This was unavoidable due to the fact that we chose our dates based upon selecting dates where the Moon does not interfere with dark sky star gazing. Believe me, I tried to see if other dates would work and they don't as we would have had to push back to a late September start or we would have collided with Thanksgiving and neither of those time frames would be acceptable.

This all brings up another point - my wife and I have a long planned trip to Africa including South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. We leave on October 13th and return home on October 27th. I will have just a 36 hour turnover between getting home and leaving for the Deep South. Due to that you will note that early reduced registration for the Deep South ends with an October 7th post mark. After that the "late" registration fee increases significantly. Why is this? I will not be able to process and log in registrations while in Africa and also not able to communicate head count to Carol at White Horse during that time frame. I can give her a registration idea before we leave for Africa and that is pretty much it. I will also have a lot to do when I get back home on the 27th and I would prefer not to have to process any registrations and checks when I get back home - hence the incentive to register early. Please, please, please do that. Do not wait. My ability to answer questions will be limited at best and maybe non-existent.

Space in the better bunk house fills fast and it helps to register early.

More details in subsequent emails. Registration forms are available on the Deep South Star Gaze Message Board. Go to dssg.boards.net You will have to join the group and then go to the sub heading for the Deep South Star Gaze. You can see and print the registration form as either a word.doc or a pdf file

Barry Simon, Director

Deep South Star Gaze

Follow-up to the first post in this thread -

Was the White Horse Retreat Camp - home to the Deep South Star Gaze affected by Hurricane Francine?

In a nutshell - no damage! I checked with Carol on September 12th and White Horse rode out the storm well.

The road leading in did incur some effects but that will all be taken care of before the DSSG begins on October 29th.

We already have 7 registrants and I want all to remember that if you want to lock in your registration and take advantage of early registration pricing, you must have your registration with payment on it's way to me no later than October 7th due to my unavailability to answer questions or to process registrations a few days after this due to our trip to Africa. All registrations not mailed by the early cutoff date should be brought in person to the Deep South. I will post details about bunk space availability before we leave for Africa on October 13th.

Thanks!

Barry

I signed up for two nights.

May extend that if the weather cooperates.

Looking forward to this one.

Hope to see a lot of you there.