Even cattle ranching, the dominant form of agriculture there, requires large acreage to raise a reasonable number of cattle. Accordingly, the Sand Hills region has never held a major human population. Thus the NSP was born, and the subsequent two NSPs have been nationally advertised. Merritt Reservoir is located in the center of Cherry County, which despite being the size of Connecticut has fewer than 7000 people. Nearly half of these live in the town of Valentine, over 25 miles from the site.
Light pollution is virtually nonexistent.
On the first night of the star party, before I arrived, veteran PAC club member David Knisely and fellow observers reported breaking the 8th magnitude barrier, as had been done at NSP the previous year. Not surprisingly, the telescopic views of deep-sky objects were impressive. In BURT, the Veil was a tangled, elaborate mass of filaments rivalling the photographs, and M17 showed a gigantic bell shaped nebula of which the traditional Swan was just an edge. Mary put ERNI through his paces, easily finding spectacular objects such as M31, the Double Cluster, and several beautiful open clusters in Cassiopeia. Additionally, thanks to the timing of the New Moon and the party itself, during the first few nights the Perseid meteor shower provided a show everyone could enjoy.