Heathcote November 21-24

[barx1963]

A few of us who would normally have headed to Snake Valley this weekend just past decided to make a trip to the ASV site at Heathcote. Cannot quote an exact number who were there as I haven't totalled it up yet but a few are still there praying for the weather gods to play nice!
Friday night was very nice with only a small patch of cloud passing over at midnight and then beautiful dark sky until 4am. Saturday was cloudy all day and at night we watched a lovely rainbow pop out right on sunset and then a light show from the thunder storms of to the north.
A big thankyou to all the members of the ASV who came up and found a bunch of rather strange new members hanging around. Especially to Vicky and her partner(sorry your name escaped me), Rusty and Darren who showed us a few things through the 25" (I finally managed the Horsehead!!), Gavin for giving us a tour of the ASV dome, Eddie for coming over to say hi and make us feel welcome and Norm for showing us his Astrolabe (awesome work). Sorry if I forgot anyone or left out any names or got the names wrong, I am still a bit brain dead!!

Malcolm

[Mckechg]

I am sure you mean strange in a good way :-P

grant

[barx1963]

We are a rather motley crew it must be said. Especially the odd lot sitting in tents, staring at screens and muttering!

Malclm

[Paddy]

Many thanks Malcolm for arranging a great get together for the Snake Valley regulars. It was a great weekend. Wonderful to catch up with everyone and some great observing on Friday night.

Is it March yet?

[rcheshire]

A further thanks Malcolm. An enjoyable couple of nights and company.

[Hagar]

Seems a fairly select group.

[mill]

All in all it was a good group of people and if we had more email addresses then we could have contacted more people to see if they could have come over.
Thanks go to the ASV for having us and showing us the equipment :thumbsup:

[mill]

Don't talk about a fairly select group Doug, because you know all about that too well.
Talking about calling the kettle black here is a bit two faced.

[peterbat]

It was great to catch up with some of the Snake Valley people again, even if I was only there for the one night.
It was a pleasant surprise to see so many familiar faces.
Peter

[Nico13]

Glad you guys had a good night Friday, sorry to have missed catching up with everyone, worked Friday and Saturday night plus still sorting new equipment as well so next one maybe.

[Hagar]

For those who are unaware, I have a small forum 12 members who are all friends. Martin is obviously still quite upset that I removed his membership. It was removed for various reasons none of which I intend to go into here. It is now apparent he feels my comment was two faced because I considered myself to be one of the Snake Valley group yet removed him from the forum. I only attended about the last 7 years.(14 camps) or there about. I like to think I helped a lot of people at the camps and I certainly enjoyed them myself and made some good friends into the bargain.

[barx1963]

Hey Nico and Peter!
Peter, it was great to see you again, I am still finding those plans for the binocular mount we talked about and will email them hopefully tonight!
Nico, it was a great night Friday.


Malcolm

[Greenswale]

Yep, it was a darn fine weekend, and a great catch-up. Friday night was pretty good for looking up, Saturday night the best for rainbows (curved inwards at the bottom!!!!) and lightning, and a fair bit of yarning and carry-on.

Was good to get to talk to a bunch of ASV people and to learn more about what goes on in the society. Looks like a great place to land!

New scope delivery is imminent, so definitely another visit to LMDSS in December. I have it on good authority that the skies will be clear for first light. Hahahahaha!

[barx1963]

Wren
Good to hear, just remind me what the new scope is going to be? Sorry I didn't make it over to you to have a look through the little Vixen!

Cheers

Malcolm

[astro_nutt]

Despite the inclement weather on the weekend, it was great to have met more fellow astronomers and listen to their stories and experiences which more than made up for the lack of stars. I will look forward to the next visit to the LMDSS.
Cheers!

[byronpaul]

Hi all,

what a great weekend in general despite the somewhat less than perfect weather.

Arriving on Friday afternoon was great, really clear skies, go about the set-up the Caravan and Scope in unfamiliar territory, followed by plenty of good solar observing through an SM40, SM60 and a double stacked Lunt 50 …. The results, amazing views and plenty of sunburn to the neck.

Friday night was pretty good overall, patches of cloud throughout the night but it got really good for a few hours about 1am. Got the usual targets in, but also plenty of new ones as well. Seeing at times was damn good. Spent most of the night with Malcolm and Patrick with viewing through our 16”, 18” & 20” Dobs.

About 3am we all wandered over to Gavin and Rusty and the ASV’s 25” Obsession. First couple of targets were good through the Societies 22mm & 31mm Naglers, but we weren’t doing the scopes big 25” mirror justice at that magnification. Solution …. pop in Malcolm’s 13mm Ethos …. Now we are talking !!!!

Next few targets were fantastic. For me, the views of Thor’s Helmet and NGC1365 were amazing. NGC1365 wasn’t just a barred galaxy, the detail could be seen in the core as though it had been imaged. Four of the six observing also confirmed they spotted Horsehead with the h-beta filter. Capped of a great night and with cloud rolling in about 4am we called it a night.

Rest of the weekend for me was just R&R and general socializing as the weather hampered any further observing.

Quote of the weekend goes to Malcolm. When talking to the ASV boys at the 25” Obsession about what scopes we were using, Malcolm described them as “…. I’ve got a 20”, Paul’s got an 18” and Patrick got a little 16” …….. Made a few of us laugh and Patrick will never forgive Malcolm for the jibe :lol::lol::lol:

Great to catch-up with some familiar faces, and also to meet some next folks from ASV

Can’t wait for the next get together

Paul

[Greenswale]

New scope is a C9.25 Evolution: www.celestron.com/browse-shop/astronomy/telescopes/nexstar-evolution-925 A neat and tidy solution!

[Paddy]

Yeah, Malcolm has certainly developed a penchant for saying "little" about other people's scopes. But we still love you Malcolm. Those views of Thor's Helmet through the 25" were just phenomenal!!!

Congratulations on the new scope Wren - hope the skies stay clear!

[barx1963]

In my defence, I would argue that it was a compliment, Patricks scope is very compact and well put together, so "little" refers to the entire package not the size of the mirror.:help::help:

Hmmm. well that's my story!;)

Malcolm

[Paddy]

Nice bit of reframing there Malcolm! Ever thought of a career as a media adviser to a politician? :lol:

[Jen]

:rofl: :rofl: haha awww poor Paddy but a 16" is still good you know I'm easy pleased with my 12" :D hehe :thumbsup:
Thanks for organising it Malcolm ((hugs))
Well despite the crappy weather it made me feel like I was right at snake valley hahaha it was so good to catch up with you all :D I did miss a lot of peeps too. I missed out on getting to know Ed my new Ed80 (naughty me) as I didn't get it out on Friday night as I was doing the usual being a Friday night social butterfly :) :P at least now I know how to put it all together thanks heaps guys lol
Wow what a great spot up there it has everything :) too long a walk from the imaging field to the toilets though I need to go back to visual :P
Due to crappy weather I cut my time short and only stayed for three nights :(
Daniel, Ryan, Drew and myself oh and a goat hahaha were the only ones there on Sunday night and it cleared up beautifully for a couple of hours so I got to fire up johnny after all yayyy seen ngc253 through my scope for the first time very cool :thumbsup:
Thank you so much Daniel for bringing Ryan or Drew would have been very bored and thanks for hanging around to help me pack up you are a true gentlemen xo
The new moon in January is near Australia Day long weekend so I might head down there again that weekend if anyone wants to catch up and show me the next step on how to use my new scope :help:

IS IT MARCH YET :)

[Big Dave]

I was good to catch up with everyone.
My Friday night image.

I setup a Yahoo group for the former camp attendees. if you did not get an email invite, send me a PM (I have only a few addresses).

Cheers
Dave.


P.S. Had some Pav Sat night!

[danielsun]

Hey all, had a great weekend and was great to catch up with everyone and check out the ASV site and meet some ASV members.:thumbsup:
Loved your precision state of the art counterweight widefield set up there niko!
Hey Jen, yeah no worries, only us die hards could hack it all three nights :lol: and was great that the sky cleared up just enough to have a bit of a visual through Jonny on the last night. something I haven't done for a while. :thumbsup:
Thanks Malcolm for your efforts in keeping it going and looking forward to March :thumbsup:
Hey Dave thanks mate, yep got your yahoo invite will hook up shortly. :thumbsup:
Here are a few pics.

[Mckechg]

Don't Particularly need to know about the dirty laundry, it was a great night and I have to say the brilliant nature of people in the Astro community makes me want to spend more time with people, sometimes in small groups sometimes in large! just saying...

[Hagar]

You have some dirty laundry do you? Perhaps we will meet one day, dirty washing and all.