SSSP – The Amazing Sky

September 6, 2025September 6, 2025

Scenes from a Star Party

Amateur astronomers like nothing more than spending time under a dark night sky with a field of friends.

Star parties are a popular part of the hobby of amateur astronomy. They’re chances for stargazers to get under dark skies and meet up with others who love the night sky.

Each year I attend the biggest such event in my area in western Canada, the Saskatchewan Summer Star Party. It usually attracts about 320 sky lovers to the very dark skies of southwest Saskatchewan.

A light pollution map where grey = good!

The label marks the spot for the Party, in the Cypress Hills, and in the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, that straddles the border of Saskatchewan and Alberta. As per its name, the SSSP is held on the Saskatchewan side of the Park, in the Centre Block south of Maple Creek. (A complementary Southern Alberta Star Party is held on the Alberta side of the Cypress Hills, in September. I’ll be there!)

As the map shows, the Cypress Hills are far from any light pollution and offer “Bortle 2-class” skies — 1 being the darkest, and 9 being downtown Las Vegas!

In fact, the Park is a Dark Sky Preserve, a designation awarded in 2004. Parks are increasingly aware of their role in not only conserving flora, fauna, and historical sites, but also the increasingly threatened night sky. As the saying goes, “Half the Park is after dark!”

The Dark Sky Preserve designation, and efforts to refit what lighting is in the Park to “dark-sky friendly” fixtures, came about as a direct result of the Park, and Star Party, being the site of a comet discovery three years earlier.

It was at the Star Party in August 2001 that Regina amateur astronomer Vance Petriew discovered a comet, an observing feat that merits a comet being named for the discoverer.

This year, a new sign and plaque were unveiled commemorating the discovery, replacing a cairn that had fallen into disrepair over 20 years. Here is the unveiling —

Park officials, fellow astronomers and Vance unveil the sign.

This was a fine event with all the star party folks in attendance, many of whom were there in 2001! — including the now adult daughters of the Petriew family.

Click on the images below to bring the photos up full screen.

While that was a highlight of the week, the real show was the sky above. The Milky Way was on display in a sky clearer and darker than we had seen it for many years. No clouds, no smoke, and little dew and bugs! The Cypress Hills are a mecca for stargazing!

The road into the Meadows Campground, home to the Saskatchewan Summer Star Party. The SSSP is organized by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada centres in Regina and Saskatoon.

Telescopes and tents under the Milky Wa.y

A popular part of this star party, as it is at many such events, is a laser-guided tour of naked-eye sights, where a guide points out the constellation patterns, and highlights objects that need nothing more than binoculars to see well.

In a slide show below, astronomer Ron Waldron from Saskatoon conducts the 2025 Friday night “star walk.” It’s BYOB — Bring Your Own Binoculars!

Laser touring the sky
Yes, there was an aurora
Look up! Look way up!
Peering into the Galactic Core

While participants stay up until the wee hours to enjoy all that the sky has to offer, every star party offers a range of daytime activities (but not happening too early!). Star parties are great places to see fields of telescopes of every description. This year the program included a formal “show-and-shine” tour of some notable gear for all to admire. And there’s the ever-popular swap meet with bargains on offer.

The Swap Meet
Kevin’s astrophoto rig
Wade’s classic refractor
Ed’s super astrophoto scope
Nick’s astrophoto array
Dan’s super solar scope

We enjoyed several talks on a range of astronomy topics, not just stargazing, but also the latest in science research. We heard about a satellite being built in Saskatchewan by U of S and U of R students, and about how the Mars Perseverance rover collects samples, in a talk from one of the researchers involved with the NASA mission.

Kimberly Sibbald delivered the opening keynote on her amazing astrophotos.
Dr. Chris Herd from the U of A explained Mars sample collection.
And I gave a short talk about eclipses coming up.
A 3D model of the Sask Sat

And of course there were awards and door prizes to be won! Always to a capacity crowd at the Cypress Resort conference room.

The door prizes being handed out. You must be in the room to win!

It was a superb 4 days of astronomy and stargazing. If you are in the area, I highly recommend attending. Next year’s SSSP will be August 12 to 15 inclusive — it’s always at New Moon. The website is here but won’t be updated for the 2026 event details until next year.

I won’t be there in 2026, as August 12 is the date of the next total eclipse of the Sun, which I discuss in my previous blog. I plan to be in Spain!

This is the new sign and plaque commemorating the discovery in 2001 of a comet here in the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park by Vance Petriew.

But I highly recommend attending in 2026. As most people do, you may find yourself enjoying the weekend so much you make it an annual event in your calendar. I shall miss my annual August ritual of the SSSP in 2026 and in 2027 — there’s an eclipse that August, too!

But 2025 was certainly a fine year to enjoy all that the Cypress Hills have to offer under the stars.

— Alan, September 6, 2025 / AmazingSky.com

August 26, 2018

The Living Skies of Saskatchewan

I spent a wonderful week touring the star-filled nightscapes of southwest Saskatchewan.

On their license plates Saskatchewan is billed as the Land of Living Skies. I like the moniker that Saskatchewan singer-songwriter Connie Kaldor gives it – the sky with nothing to get in the way.

Grasslands National Park should be a mecca for all stargazers. It is a Dark Sky Preserve. You can be at sites in the Park and not see a light anywhere, even in the far distance on the horizon, and barely any sky glows from manmade sources.

The lead image shows the potential for camping in the Park under an amazing sky, an attraction that is drawing more and more tourists to sites like Grasslands.

This is a multi- panel panorama of the Milky Way over the historic 76 Ranch Corral in the Frenchman River Valley, once part of the largest cattle ranch in Canada. Mars shines brightly to the east of the galactic core.

Mars and the Milky Way over the tipis at Two Trees area in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan on August 6, 2018. Some light cloud added the haze and glows to the planets and stars. Illumination is by starlight. No light painting was employed here. This is a stack of 8 exposures for the ground, mean combined to smooth noise, and a single untracked exposure for the sky, all 30 seconds at f/2.8 with the Sigma 20mm lens, and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400 with LENR on.

Mars (at left) and the Milky Way (at right) over a single tipi (with another under construction at back) at the Two Trees site at Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan, August 6, 2018. I placed a low-level warm LED light inside the tipi for the illumination. This is a stack of 6 exposures, mean combined to smooth noise, for the ground, and one untracked exposure for the sky, all 30 seconds at f/2.2 with the 20mm Sigma lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 3200.

The Big Dipper and Arcturus (at left) over a single tipi at the Two Trees site at Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan, August 6, 2018. This is a stack of 10 exposures, mean combined to smooth noise, for the ground, and one untracked exposure for the sky, all 30 seconds at f/2.8 with the 20mm Sigma lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400. Light cloud passing through added the natural star glows, enlarging the stars and making the pattern stand out. No soft focus filter was employed, and illumination is from starlight. No light painting was employed. Some airglow and aurora colour the sky. A Glow filter from ON1 Photo Raw applied to the sky to further soften the sky.

At the Two Trees site visitors can stay in the tipis and enjoy the night sky. No one was there the night I was shooting. The night was warm, windless, and bug-less. It was a perfect summer evening.

From Grasslands I headed west to the Cypress Hills along scenic backroads. The main Meadows Campground in Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, another Dark Sky Preserve, is home every year to the Saskatchewan Summer Star Party. About 350 stargazers and lovers of the night gather to revel in starlight.

The Perseid meteor shower over the Saskatchewan Summer Star Party, on August 10, 2018, with an aurora as a bonus. The view is looking north with Polaris at top centre, and the Big Dipper at lower left. The radiant point in Perseus is at upper right. The sky also has bands of green airglow, which was more prominent in images taken earlier before the short-lived aurora kicked up. The aurora was not obvious to the naked eye. However, the northern sky was bright all night with the airglow and faint aurora. This is a composite of 10 images, one for the base sky with the aurora and two faint Perseids, and 9 other images, each with Perseids taken over a 3.3 hour period, being the best 9 frames with meteors out of 360. Each exposure was 30 seconds at f/2 with the 15mm Laoawa lens and Sony a7III at ISO 4000. I rotated all the additional meteor image frames around Polaris to align the frames to the base sky image, so that the added meteors appear in the sky in the correct place with respect to the background stars, retaining the proper perspective of the radiant point.

A Perseid meteor streaks down the Milky Way over the Saskatchewan Summer Star Party in the Cypress Hills of southwest Saskatchewan, at Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, a Dark Sky Preserve. The Milky Way shines to the south. About 350 stargazers attend the SSSP every year. Observers enjoy their views of the sky at left while an astrophotographer attends to his camera control computer at right. This is a single exposure, 25 seconds, with the Laowa 15mm lens at f/2 and Sony a7III camera at ISO 3200.

This year coincided with the annual Perseid meteor shower and we saw lots!

Most nights were clear, and warmer than usual, allowing shirt-sleeve observing. It was a little bit of Arizona in Canada. Everyone enjoyed the experience. I know I did!

SSSP and Cypress Hills are stargazing heaven in Canada.

From Cypress Hills I drove due north to finally, after years of thinking about it, visit the Great Sandhills near Leader, Saskatchewan. Above is a panorama from the “Boot Hill” ridge at the main viewing area.

The Sandhills is not a provincial park but is a protected eco zone, though used by local ranchers for grazing. However, much of the land remains uniquely prairie but with exposed sand dunes among the rolling hills.

There are farm lights in the distance but the sky above is dark and, in the panorama above, colored by twilight and bands of red and green airglow visible to the camera. It’s dark!

In the twilight, from the top of one of the accessible sand dunes, I shot a panorama of the array of four planets currently across the sky, from Venus in the southwest to Mars in the southeast.

This is the kind of celestial scene you can see only where the sky has nothing to get in the way.

If you are looking for a stellar experience under their “living skies,” I recommend Saskatchewan.

August 11, 2013August 11, 2013

Space Station Over a Star Party

The Space Station flies over a campground of astronomers awaiting the fall of darkness.

Last night was the main night for summer star parties, being a dark-of-the-Moon Saturday in August. As I usually am each year, I was in Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan, attending the annual Saskatchewan Summer Star Party. About 330 attended this year, a near record year.

The night was partly cloudy but stayed clear enough for long enough to allow great views. As the sky was getting dark the International Space Station flew over from horizon to horizon, west to east, passing nearly overhead. I had a camera and ultra-wide lens ready and caught the pass in 10 exposures, each 30 seconds long, here stacked in Photoshop. The accumulated exposure time also makes the stars trail in circles around the North Star at upper right.

It was one of many fine sky sights hundreds of stargazers enjoyed this weekend at the SSSP, and no doubt at dozens of other star parties around the continent this weekend.