Good to catch up with people at the Takahashi Star Party, thanks to Matt, Phil and Allan for an excellent couple of days, special thanks to Phil for opening up his property and excellent observatory to the attendees.
Friday started off as a rainy day with solid cloud cover but, to my surprise, it cleared into an excellent night with everyone getting a lot of telescope time in. Was surprised on Saturday morning when I woke to find my scope was the only one left one the field.. . Saturday was warm with a lot of high cloud drifting through but started to clear not long after people started getting their scopes setup, was an interesting night with layers of high cloud drifting through and seeing going from excellent to ordinary when the high level cloud came through.
Special thanks to the 5 international guests that attended, was great meeting you , this morning Matt and I were lucky enough to show Am his first Kangaroos . Mark, your baby Tak arrived home safe and sound .
A couple of photos..
Last edited by JohnG; 10-04-2016 at 05:44 PM.
Reason: Whoops, got the international guests wrong...
I just noticed this thread, had an awesome time Friday night. Pity I missed Saturday. Sadly I couldn't bring any Taks with me; instead I had my Vixen Polarie & Telesco-Factory counter balance setup snapping away whilst good folks were generous enough to share their scopes with my wife & I.
Big thanks to Matt & Phil for the invite and being so accommodating. I do hope to meet all of you again!
NB: Matt, almost got it right with Kyoko's name . No worries as when I first met her I thought it was "Kiyoko" too!
What a great few days we just had. Thanks again to Phil for the use of his terrific observing site, and to Matt for being master of ceremonies on Saturday night with the Champaign.
I'm sure I'll mess this up, but I think the list goes something like this.
Mewlon 300
TOA 150
TSA 120
TOA 130NFB
TOA 130NS
FC 76D
FC 100DL
FC 100DL
CN 212
Mewlon 250
FSQ 106
We had 5 people from overseas and about 20 at the star party at various times over the 2 nights.
Great weekend with great company at Phil's beautiful property, thanks to all in attendance, especially to Karen and Mark from Florida, Andrias from Faroe Islands and Sean and Kiyoko (hope I got the spelling right) from Tokyo.
Good to also see the younger observers, Emilie, Jordan and Alex, in attendance.
It was fantastic to have the variety of Takahashi scopes to compare on the same night. Allan was very busy demonstrating some rather fine eyepiece pairs on the TOA130NS.
Mark's and Andrias' comments on seeing the southern objects for the first time made me realise how lucky we really are to have these beautiful sights above us.
New to Tak ownership, Colin (Atmos) went home with the 'door prize' FC100DL refractor, a scope I am sure he will enjoy for years to come and our thanks for the Porta-trailer towing.
This morning was a beautiful sunny morning, being an early riser I managed to finish off the Mumm Champagne, brought by Phil, while waiting for the billy to boil. (John, Andrias and I proved one can live a couple of days on biscuits, water and coffee and still be sociable).
After packing up and conducting an 'emu-bob' Andrias and I left the property in JohnG's capable care and collected our new friends Karen and Mark for some sightseeing around the historic town of Yass and the Yass River Gorge. We then took Karen and Mark to catch their ride at Yass Junction and said our goodbyes.
The rest of the day Andrias and I toured the Mount Stromlo Observatory and the Tidbinbilla Deep Space Comms Centre to watch the 70metre DSS43 tracking Voyager II, before meeting up with John 'The Mekon' for the next leg of Andrias' travels.
My new Tak and the Blunderbuss will be there again next year......
Clear skies,
Matt
It was a great weekend and I would like to say thanks to everyone that attended.....especially our International Friends who made the effort to come such a long way to get out there.
Special thanks to Matt and Allan for helping organise everything and Colin for his help as well :-)
I hope everyone enjoyed the location and plan for next year to have things setup even better with Solar Power 12v, 5v and 240v, Battery backup, Water, Fridge, Toilet & Shower and an undercover outdoor shelter to place benches.
It was great to see all the scopes setup...and compare the views.....
However the company was by far the highlight of the 2 nights, people of such varied backgrounds & origins sharing common interests and values......what a great group of interesting and amazingly friendly people !!
It was great to hear all the stories and experiences of everyone.... and look forward to welcoming you all back next year to share more stories ! :-)
I had a fantastic time! My first star party that I have been two that I haven't run myself, thoroughly enjoyed myself! T'was a very expensive trip for me, not only being more than happy with my new purchase but found a whole bunch of other accessories to buy for it now too!
Matts Blunderbuss and Allans binos (TOA-130) were a real pleasure to view though
DL came out briefly tonight, attempted to see Jupiter through passing cloud, over a couple of hedges and trees, quite wobbly at 140x but still better than naked eye
I had a fantastic Friday evening albeit only for a few hours. Sorry had to leave early due to my son not feeling very well (he's ok now). I missed viewing from Phil's Mewlon, will make it up next year! Thanks everyone.
The Mewlon 300 sure gave beautiful views but might not be your ideal "Grab&Go" mount
( Arief, are you missing a WO 2" eyepiece cap? and a Telrad )
My assessment from the viewing:
The FC76DS performs as well as many 4" Apos given good skies.
The FC100DL is very close to the TSA120 in visual performance
The TOA130NS is unable to show you any chromatic aberration so if you like CA you need to look at some other scope.
The Mewlon 250 is really really nice
The Mewlon 300 is amazingly good
The Mewlon 300 sure gave beautiful views but might not be your ideal "Grab&Go" mount
( Arief, are you missing a WO 2" eyepiece cap? and a Telrad )
My assessment from the viewing:
The FC76DC performs as well as many 4" Apos given good skies.
The FC100DL is very close to the TSA120 in visual performance
The TOA130NS is unable to show you any chromatic aberration so if you like CA you need to look at some other scope.
The Mewlon 250 is really really nice
The Mewlon 300 is amazingly good
John's FC76DS is a great wide field grab and go scope.......amazing how well these perform considering everyone seems to think that 100mm is the only acceptable minimum.
The FC100DL throws up some pristine views....this scope truly punches above its size......if I did not see it fist hand with detail on Mars in low to the horizon in less than ideal conditions I would never have believed it !!! go out and get one now !!
M250 is the perfect portable Mewlon......views were outstanding especially on the limb of the Moon providing such clarity and detail in less than ideal conditions.
TOA130 with bino's give a definite almost 3d depth wow factor :-) !!
The Mewlon 300 showed its usual pinpoint stars :-) Jupiter exhibited multiple clear brown banding and detail to be seen in the bands with moons all lined up nicely :-)
Matts Blunderbuss is lovely to use and brilliant on deep space ! :-)
I now have an appreciation for how well constructed the DM6 mount's are.....much better to see in real life than perusing specs.
One lesson learnt.....turn up early and setup and align as best as possible BEFORE dark ..... and never get impatient and try to drive a Mewlon 300 on a EM400 mount manually around the sky !! LoL
I had a fantastic time this weekend at the Takahashi Star Party, I enjoyed every minute of it.
Saw many of the great southern objects for the first time in my life and with the most amazing scopes at my disposal, there were next to no queues either for us, so it was pure luxury. My jaw dropped when the Magellanic Clouds first starting appearing, and I got some cool widefield shots as well.
Even more importantly, it was so great to hang out with friendly people with common interests. There's no astronomy clubs in the Faroe Islands unfortunately (got to do something about that!)
Big thanks to the hosts and everyone else for having me & showing me around the southern skies, I will see some of you again for the SPSP and I'd love to come back anytime.
Special thanks to Matt for transporting me to Canberra after the star party & showing me around the Stromlo observatory & Tidbinbilla tracking station (I could happily spend all day there), it was remarkable to think about that 70 metre dish is still receiving information from the Voyager 2 more than 18.8 billion kilometres away.
It sounds like the Tak Star Party was a great success, and kudos to those who organized and participated. Sadly I had other commitments, and a serious wallet-depletion having just returned from an overseas vacation, so couldn't make it this time.
Here's a short timelapse sequence I made from Saturday night of the Milky Way Center rising behind the Star Party, I've only ever dreamed about doing a sequence like that, until now.
This is a quickly processed timelapse of lower quality for easy upload on my mobile internet connection, but please watch in 1080p. Later on I will upload a higher quality version together with undoubtedly many fantastic sequences I'll have a chance of capturing during my stay here in Australia.
... I couldn't get there.
. Saturday was warm with a lot of high cloud drifting through but started to clear not long after people started getting their scopes setup, was an interesting night with layers of high cloud drifting through and seeing going from excellent to ordinary when the high level cloud came through.
, this morning Matt and I were lucky enough to show Am his first Kangaroos 
. Mark, your baby Tak arrived home safe and sound 
.
. No worries as when I first met her I thought it was "Kiyoko" too!
