I figured I may as well jump in.
The SV camp was / is great. Unfortunately I could only be there for Friday & Saturday nights. Looking out the window now I wish I was still there.
I must admit I was a little concerned driving from Melbourne on Friday afternoon. In places the rain was so heavy I had to pull over. Not to many stars out tonight I thought to myself. Was even contemplating heading home (for the 2nd time, but that's another story)
6pm Friday night it was almost 100% cloud cover.
9pm & the sky was as clear. Not a cloud to be seen.
11pm & it was full cloud cover again.
1.30am the sky was clear once again & stayed that way for the rest of the night.
Saturday night could not have been better. Cool & clear.
I saw objects with my little C8 that I thought I would only see with a larger scope.
I got to check out a 13mm Ethos. WOW!!!!! I know what I'll be buying next.......
Absolute credit to all organisers.
Fantastic turnout. Great range of different scopes. As someone famous once said..... "I'll be back"!!!!!!!
As Louwai has already said it was a fantastic weekend,
Sticking it out through the cloudy periods on Friday night was well worth it for those that braved cold and dew as it was clear from 1:30am onwards, I'm glad
I was one of those as I saw Saturn as well as many others for the first time.
Saturday night was just awesome, clear and crisp, pity my eyelids gave out at 2am, 4 hours sleep from Friday night caught up to me.
Also thank you to Bryan and Trevor for putting up with my n00b questions all weekend and helping with my equipment. Thanks guys.
Louwai I've already started looking at a Ultra Wide EP / Feathertouch focuser and dew heaters/controller on the net.
Thanks to Ken and all the other organisers and sponsors for a great weekend.
Ps I still havn't figured out how to roll up that laptop hutch thingo
Once again I enjoyed myself catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. I got to give the SDM a good workout and saw many many galaxies that I had not seen before
Thanks to Ken and Darren for once again organising yet another successful astro camp.
Hi all,
Great weekend Great to meet and catch up with fellow observers.
No doubt Ken will post the full story of the weekend.
Big thank you to Ken (thats him in the photo) also Darren and all the sponsors.
A few photos. Geoffs SDM is
Chris's WO110 is I hope to have one one day
More reports will follow and story of the SV100 with photo's from Ken.
Well, I had a fantastic weekend. Very relaxing feel to the whole camp. Great location, great bunch of people and some terrific dark sky after a shaky (read - torrential) start to the weekend on Friday!
Terrific to get the opportunity to meet a few faces to the names often seen here, see a huge range of scopes, eyepieces, nifty l'll gadgets etc.
A huge thanks to Ken, Darren and all the others for organising a great weekend and the local ladies for a great meal on Saturday night - next year I want the job of cleaning up the trifle bowl!
Also, a personal thanks to Darren, Ken, Daniel, Andrew, Martin, Eric, Dave, Barb & David and others for their personalised help with my new scope and the many stupid questions.
The offers of help, advice, invitations to view others scopes, laptop setups etc was so genuinely given and very gratefulle received.
Daniel, got the scope setup in the backyard on Sunday night and managed a pretty good polar alignment and then dift aligned - not perfect but pretty good, and I couldn't have done it without your pateint help on the weekend.
Am heading up to the photo shop to pick up the photos from the weekend (yes, I'm still using FILM!) and will post if any are any good.
Will definitely be putting Sanke Valley camps in the diary and I urge others who considered attending this one to come to the next one - IT WAS GREAT!!!
Hope you do, Dave! Looking forward to seeing it on IceTrade!
I could only stay the one night Friday but had heaps of fun. Was good to catch up with regulars and meet some new people too. Nice to try out the new TV Ethos - it is the perfect EP - easily the best ever TV EP!
Anna and I had a great weekend as usual, it's always good to catch up with old friends and make new ones!
Thanks Ken, Darren and Dave a great job as per usual guys.
I've added a few of my happy snaps and the obligatory group photo of course.
The camp was great, a big Thank You to Ken, Darren and DaveG for all their organising. I met a lot of new faces this time around, and seemed like there were more tents and scopes in the field than I'd seen there before.
Anna and I had a great weekend as usual, it's always good to catch up with old friends and make new ones!
Thanks Ken, Darren and Dave a great job as per usual guys.
I've added a few of my happy snaps and the obligatory group photo of course.
Had a great time! Sorry for leaving so early this morning before anyone was out of bed...had made a deal with Mitch if he got ready early enough we would go to Macca's for breaky! He was already packed when I went to bed at 1:30.
Yep, a great turn put on by Ken, Darren & the rest of the SVAA. Only sorry that I just had one evening there (Mon), and missed the 'madding crowd'! Still, met a couple of new faces, and caught up with some old ones (in the sense of "met already", not "OLD" of course! ).
My first camp - are they all this good??!! Many thanks to Ken, Darren and others involved in organising everything. I had a great time, meeting people, seeing equipment, observing new objects and trying new things. Here is the obligatory "pelican shot" - taken afocal with a little point and shoot digital through one of the barrels of my 30x100s! Looks like a spycam
Another great camp and a special thanks to Ken (Ballarat Dragons) Darren (Wombat in space) and Dave(47 Tuc) for putting an excellent camp together!! It was great to catch up with everyone again and see some new faces too. I have got lots of pics but i'll just post a few for now and also got some reasonable deep sky shots to go through.
) also Darren and all the sponsors.
).
