Best star party I've been to so far. Incredible skies. Got 6 clear nights in a row with an intermission Wednesday arvo so now I have added a big tarp to my bag of goodies (thanks to the Houghy shop) because the rain falls horizontally in QLD.
Some sun shower....
The venue is really well organised. Top notch facilities, accommodation and food. Great people too. Was good to put a face on all those IIS handles. Wine/Port/Beer, cheese and crackers went down smoothly.
Had an absolute ball. Will be back next year for more. Big thanks to all.
Big big big thank you to the organisers, camp management and friendly folk sharing their time, tales and scopes for making it such a great event! Had 9 clear nights, so need to sleep pretty badly now
Huge thanks to the committee who arranged fantastic weather, fabulous wind and light show with the storm on Wednesday (to clear the atmosphere after 10:00 pm and the rest of the week), and refused bookings from the mist during the dark hours.
The weather was the best I have ever seen and I have never been able to pull so many all-nighters... so little sleep with the kids penned in the room with us!!! Last night it felt criminal to shut down the scope at 2:00 am without fog or clouds but I was exhausted as we couldn't get to bed before 5-6:00 am for 5 days. Actually I'm not sure how many day... it is all a blur.
Great to see Dave and Alan back after their absence last year, and the rest of the faces that have become regulars (too many to list here and now). Also good to see some of the old familiar faces, Don Whiteman from Bintel (good to have met John... hope to see him many more times), Dave Larkin, Peter Robins, Brendan and Colin as always, and of course most of the committee are long time attendees.
I have no idea when I will be able to even LOOK at my data, let alone process it.
I want to thank all the people who came, because it is the people who make the Astrofest so great.
What a great week, 6 nights for me and everyone of them clear through to the very cold and frosty sunrises. Thanks to everyone for their advice, weather sought after or not A great group of people to talk to, draw knowledge from. It was great to sit back and enjoy a drink with the cheese, crackers hummus and one really spicy guacamole whilst waiting for the dreaded ding of PHD2 dropping a star. If I'm in the country next year I might have to stretch it out to stay the whole 9 nights.
Thank you to all those wonderful folk who made Astrofest possible, and for EVERYONES hospitality towards me, my mate Oleg, and to Gondwana Telescopes,
This is my second time up at Astrofest, and it's impact on me was as strong as the first. We often chase the thrill of the first time again, and often it is only just good rather than as awesome as the first. This time a series of events had me meet more wonderful people who then shared their equipment with me, and pointed out celestial targets that were not just totally new to me, but also really, REALLY blew my socks off!
Oh, and to those imaging buggers who gave me such a tough time for setting up my visual gear on their precious imaging field, , I'm still sticking with camera version 1.0! I'll be shortly posting a couple of photos of the TWO sketches I did of the Veil Nebula! Ooooohhh, what a lovely, lovely sight!!!!!
Thank you to all those wonderful folk..............
Oh, and to those imaging buggers who gave me such a tough time for setting up my visual gear on their precious imaging field, , I'm still sticking with camera version 1.0! I'll be shortly posting a couple of photos of the TWO sketches I did of the Veil Nebula! Ooooohhh, what a lovely, lovely sight!!!!!
I am one very satisfied photon junkie.
Alex.
the light pollution this visual junkie pumped out was tremendous to the extent we thought he was imaging
1958km travelled there and back and what do i have to show for it - nearly nothing. I was lucky to get my eq8 working after a software glitch day 2 and packed nearly everything away. Thankfully the knowledge on the field came to my rescue and was able to resurrect the mount which i have now called Lazarus. after a quick tutorial on pHD2 from Peter i was on my way to drift alignment and seventh heaven photon capturing - well after i used my hand 1.0 version software to focus the moonlight focuser . Also apple computers suck big time - tried using one for image capture control of the 600D with nebulosity 3 - hopeless (this of course is no admission of thickness on my part of how it works )
I have seen many sunrises, witnessed the Crown affair, been moon burnt and have suffered heat exhaustion on the field from the effects of lunar heating.
glad i went but paying the price for 10 days from home -------------> it's an astrofest free zone at home now
I had a great time - too much so. next time i will travel lighter and with more purpose.
unfortunately for Alan his eq6 died on switch on - he was mountless for most of astrofest.
its hard to sit back and look up at this for the whole of astrofest........
Thank you to all those wonderful folk who made Astrofest possible, and for EVERYONES hospitality towards me, my mate Oleg, and to Gondwana Telescopes,
This is my second time up at Astrofest, and it's impact on me was as strong as the first. We often chase the thrill of the first time again, and often it is only just good rather than as awesome as the first. This time a series of events had me meet more wonderful people who then shared their equipment with me, and pointed out celestial targets that were not just totally new to me, but also really, REALLY blew my socks off!
Oh, and to those imaging buggers who gave me such a tough time for setting up my visual gear on their precious imaging field, , I'm still sticking with camera version 1.0! I'll be shortly posting a couple of photos of the TWO sketches I did of the Veil Nebula! Ooooohhh, what a lovely, lovely sight!!!!!
I am one very satisfied photon junkie.
Alex.
Thank you for showing this imaging guy some visual objects through your scopes. Truly appreciated that.
Thanks to all the organisers. You people are the best. You can see why Sky At Night magazine listed QLD Astrofest as one of the top ten star parties on the planet.
Lovely to catch up with old friends and finally meet in person old online friends.
It is really good to see so many positive comments. On behalf of the Astrofest committee I'd like to thank everyone who attended and had such a great time, it's the people out on the field who make this event so much fun.
I also want to thank Astrofest 2015 sponsors, especially:
Steve & Sandra at My Astroshop
Don and the boys at Bintel
Cheryl and Ashley at Sirius Optics
Will and the team at Skywatcher
And of course our minor sponsors.
Us committee folk get a few weeks off now (after one more wrap-up meeting) then we begin planning for next year. I hope to see you all in 2016.
A great group of people to talk to, draw knowledge from. It was great to sit back and enjoy a drink with the cheese, crackers hummus and one really spicy guacamole whilst waiting for the dreaded ding of PHD2 dropping a star. If I'm in the country next year I might have to stretch it out to stay the whole 9 nights. 
, I'm still sticking with camera version 1.0! 
. Also apple computers suck big time - tried using one for image capture control of the 600D with nebulosity 3 - hopeless (this of course is no admission of thickness on my part of how it works )
