Equinox Sky Camp 2006
See www.starparty.org for background.
Mike, Mark and myself arrived late afternoon/early evening on Thursday 21st September. Tents were pitched, old acquaintances renewed and a good 4 hours observing had before the cloud rolled in just after 1 a.m.
Friday it rained for 7 hours! A trip to a local Internet café revealed skies clearing by 9 p.m. and staying clear through until dawn. And so it transpired!
Conditions were very, very dewy but the seeing was excellent as was the transparency.
By this time there must have been 300 astronomers set up across the 2 main fields all raring to go, except Mike! For some reason he’d wandered off late to the bar for food and needed tempting out by my first find of the night.
Abell 39 is a lovely, if faint planetary nebula in Hercules. At mag 12.9 and 2.9’ in diameter this is a smoke ring annulus and a tricky pick under the darkening skies through the 18”, 24mm Panoptic and OIII filter.
Meantime Mark was collimating scopes and going visual for the night.
I spent a long time cruising across, along and up the crisp Milky Way picking out objects at random, dark and bright nebulae, planetary nebulae and open clusters. There were packed star fields and dense swathes of dust. All observed through the 18” and 31 mm eyepiece. NGC 6781 is another bright and recommended ring planetary in Aquila.
Moving towards the zenith the Veil nebula was great and without the OII filter the variation in star density from inside (where the dust has been swept clean) to outside the arcs was obvious. The elusive Cocoon nebula was an easy view in the great conditions.
Meanwhile the dew kept on falling.
A peek at Uranus was had through a 12” Takahashi Mewlon. My best view of the planet and all it took was a good sky and £20+k worth of kit!
Stunning views of many of the autumn star party classics were had. M31, M33, Stephan’s Quintet, Jones 1, NGC 7479, NGC 891 etc. Variously through my 18” or the 20” of Owen Brazell.
I spent some time panning around with some twin 5” Takahashi refractors. See S@N for these.
The hour grew late and bed beckoned about 04:30.
And up again at 8! Saturday was a scorcher, shorts and T-shirts. Numerous vendors were resisted this time around and I came home with £460 more than I travelled with having sold a mount and tripod J
Lots of chat and BS was had throughout the day and fortunately (?) it stayed cloudy that night and I staggered to my tent (through exhaustion) to sleep at 10 p.m.
Rain in the night conveniently stopped to allow tent packing early Sunday and the trip home took about 4 ½ hours with the help of a detour picked up from Mark via his SatNav.
If the weather is good, this event is a *must do* for any keen astronomer.
Cheers. Paul
Mike, Mark and myself arrived late afternoon/early evening on Thursday 21st September. Tents were pitched, old acquaintances renewed and a good 4 hours observing had before the cloud rolled in just after 1 a.m.
Friday it rained for 7 hours! A trip to a local Internet café revealed skies clearing by 9 p.m. and staying clear through until dawn. And so it transpired!
Conditions were very, very dewy but the seeing was excellent as was the transparency.
By this time there must have been 300 astronomers set up across the 2 main fields all raring to go, except Mike! For some reason he’d wandered off late to the bar for food and needed tempting out by my first find of the night.
Abell 39 is a lovely, if faint planetary nebula in Hercules. At mag 12.9 and 2.9’ in diameter this is a smoke ring annulus and a tricky pick under the darkening skies through the 18”, 24mm Panoptic and OIII filter.
Meantime Mark was collimating scopes and going visual for the night.
I spent a long time cruising across, along and up the crisp Milky Way picking out objects at random, dark and bright nebulae, planetary nebulae and open clusters. There were packed star fields and dense swathes of dust. All observed through the 18” and 31 mm eyepiece. NGC 6781 is another bright and recommended ring planetary in Aquila.
Moving towards the zenith the Veil nebula was great and without the OII filter the variation in star density from inside (where the dust has been swept clean) to outside the arcs was obvious. The elusive Cocoon nebula was an easy view in the great conditions.
Meanwhile the dew kept on falling.
A peek at Uranus was had through a 12” Takahashi Mewlon. My best view of the planet and all it took was a good sky and £20+k worth of kit!
Stunning views of many of the autumn star party classics were had. M31, M33, Stephan’s Quintet, Jones 1, NGC 7479, NGC 891 etc. Variously through my 18” or the 20” of Owen Brazell.
I spent some time panning around with some twin 5” Takahashi refractors. See S@N for these.
The hour grew late and bed beckoned about 04:30.
And up again at 8! Saturday was a scorcher, shorts and T-shirts. Numerous vendors were resisted this time around and I came home with £460 more than I travelled with having sold a mount and tripod J
Lots of chat and BS was had throughout the day and fortunately (?) it stayed cloudy that night and I staggered to my tent (through exhaustion) to sleep at 10 p.m.
Rain in the night conveniently stopped to allow tent packing early Sunday and the trip home took about 4 ½ hours with the help of a detour picked up from Mark via his SatNav.
If the weather is good, this event is a *must do* for any keen astronomer.
Cheers. Paul
posted by Paul Clark at 4:15 PM
