Leyburn Sky Night

[Striker]

Hi All,

David (Westsky) invited me out to leyburn for the weekend starting Friday night......I gratefully accepted and Picked up Andrew (Astro_South) and his Big Dob on the way through....Leyburn is approx 200km west of brisbane with nice dark skies.....we got their at 5:00pm Friday afternoon to set up and wait for the beautiful skies to reveal themselves....

This was my first time ever under dark skies and I immediately could see the difference......I wont go through them all but Andrew showed me neally every Nebula, Cluster, Planatries and Galaxies their is....they were throwing NGC numbers at me causing my thumb to get bruised on my GOTO keypad....lol

I was completely amazed at what you can see with the majors like Tuc47, Orion , Omega cent, Terantula and heaps of other Clusters....plus lots lots more...

If anything I didn't think their was much difference when looking at the planets......their probably was but was marginal....to me anyway...

I had a great time...learnt heaps and I must say Andrew handles that Big Dob very well.....he was beating me to most of the targets while I layed back waiting for my GOTO to slur into position...I have pictures but 1 main one I had of all 3 of us taken by another astronomer...did not turn out at all well so hopefuly Andrew might have something....

David had a frustrating night....had a bit of trouble getting his new DSI working but once he worked out the cause of this his Laptop battery went flat.....lol

I have a picture of David (Westsky) with his Celestrons and a couple of picture's of our scopes.....

[Striker]

Andrews Dob

[Striker]

My LX200 10"

[janoskiss]

Thanks for sharing that Striker. Yes, unpolluted skies are awesome. Was good to read that man+experience beats machine (Andrew 1 : GOTOputer 0).

Well done Andrew! :clap:

[Striker]

I dont mind loosing to Andrew.....but all is not lost for me....I found the M13 Hercules Globular Cluster with the binoculars...and yes I beat Andrew...so their....lol

I think Andrew was actualy doing something else at the time...but who cares....I beat him.....hehehe

[Starkler]

A properly set up 'push-to' will beat yaz both :P

Great to see more people meeting up and enjoying the night skies together.

[astro_south]

Thanks for the kind? words Tony

I didn't realise M13 was a race. I must say though, it was gratefying to see him wander off on his own and hunt down the glob in binos after we actually examined a star chart together to find out whether it had risen - no buttons pressed on this one - that's why I think it was remebered :)

We had a reasonable night. The trip up there saw us surrounded in clouds, and we even drove through a light shower as we approached the observing site. We had to contend with a few clouds during the twighlight period, but once the sun had well and truley set the clouds seemed to evaporate away, and we had no cloud trouble at all. There air temp was very comfortable and we had no dew at all. The transperancy was exellent, but of course there is always "one at every party", and tonight it was the seeing's turn to misbehave. Stars up to 40 degrees above the horizon were flickery, infact while watching Scorpio rise above the murk a group of us noticed Antares almost disappear and reappear a number of times.

We started off by checking out a comet that was very close to 47Tuc. I think someone mentioned it was Linear 1, but I am yet to check this out. I then showed Tony N1365, a lovely galaxy in Fornax that shows distinct spiral arms coming off the central bar. We then checked out N2808 which was a lovely glob in both our scopes. Later we turned our attention to the Orion nebula. Here we saw the same ruddy pink colour in my dob that I have reported before, which also showed through in Tony's 10" LX200. I then showed Tony the dull nebula where the Horsehead lives. Unfiltered (in my dob) we could make out the dark area in the background nebula that was the Horsehead, but no detail at all - no horse head shape.

As Tony mentioned, I gave him the cook's tour of the skies, but what might be surprising for him is I really only touched the surface of what is out there. I gave him some highlights and was concertrating on the brightest and most interesting objects, that he may have a chance of seeing from his home, and his planned observatory. We spent some time on M104 - Sombrero as Tony commented on it appearing to be a "true" galaxy in the image it shows. We also examined the Homonculus nebula at high power, picking out and matching the detail in the Hubble photo.

A highlight for me was finally getting the opportunity to chase down Shapley 1 (a lovely planetary nebula ring in Norma) with my dob. While the goto boys where trying to figure out how to enter the coordinates into the hand controller I had a the very coarse Cambridge star atlas and set about a hunt in the area. After a short minute of two I had located the faint ring, well before the button pushing had finished. :)

I would just like to add - I can't believe how many times Striker was checking his hair!! I kid you not - I caught him at just after 2am shining his red torch into the front of his SCT checking to make sure hair number 22747 wasn't out of place :)

Didn't get an IceInSpace group shot with my camera, but I did get some I will add.

Just like to thank Tony for the lift out there and the great entertaining company he provided - a most enjoyable night

[astro_south]

Here is a shot of Tony making last minute critical adjustments to his dew shield before its installation

[astro_south]

....And here is the finished product (prior to its "where am I" dance- Tony's 10" LX200. It was later pointed out to Tony that the dew shield was not infact not pointing perfectly straight, which IIRC he rushed over and rectified.

I would like to add that the Meade certainly tracked very well all night - must be doing something right in its little dance :)

[ving]

lol!
tony and the dancing meade :P

sounds like you guys had fun. good on yas.

[Striker]

OK....I was checking my hair.....but I thought I could get away with it.....it just looked like I was checking the corrector plate for dew.....oh well.....

Yeah the little dance the LX200 does once you boot her up....works well...it checks North...south and then all levels..then finaly GPS positioning then a 2 star alignment.....only takes 5 mins.....but well worth it....

I am very happy with how it tracks...not sure on other brands or models....but if I am tracking Saturn for EG... I can come back in 4 hours and it will be still centre of view.....I havn't tested longer then that.....

[ving]

excuse my ignorance tony but I am a push n' go guy...
I take it that the gps means you dont have to polar align? :confuse3:

[mick pinner]

Hi Westsky,
N oticed the Celestron was on an EQ6, what type of tracking system are you using and what's your impressions.
l'm thinking of ditching the fork in favour of an EQ for the LX 200, thanks for your thoughts.
Mick.

[westsky]

Hi Mick, The EQ6 is driven by the Vixen Skysenser 2000pc.
my impression, just brilliant doesn't get any better than this.
The EQ6 will handle anything, put as much weight on it as you like and it just gets better.I have a C11 and 60mm F7 guide scope, very heavy pan and tilit head, all up about 28kg and around 25kg of counter weights on this setup and it works great.
Synta have recently released there Goto for the EQ6 it's called SkyScan
looks very similar to the Celestron Nextstar hand controller.I have been reading reports from Canada and Europe about just how good there skyscan system is people there are getting 2 and 3 minute unguided shots from this mount with Skyscan and as its about $1000.00 cheaper than the SS2K I think if I was buying now that is the way I would go.
I have to say I was impressed with Tony's L200 tracking, for a fork mount it was excellent although if you have imaging in mind then an EQ mount is the way to go, less hassle with field rotation and such like.

David.

[iceman]

Sorry moving to the astornomy chat forum. Will read indepth tomorrow when I have more time. :)

[astro_south]

How where the skies on Saturday night David?

[Argonavis]

you blokes seem to have set up a long way away from the caravans.......is there some class system operating here?

The astronomers with caravans and those without?

[westsky]

Yes its the photographers corner, well away from the rabble with there
dobs.
Most weekends there are scopes all the way across the paddock this was early Friday night,On Saturday there would have been another 10 scopes between us and the vans.
Andrew, Saturday was better in some ways the planets where better,
deep sky about the same. it did get good enough to get around 5 shots in between midnight and 4am.

David

[astro_south]

David - good to here you got some shots in. As for the rabble...I resemble that remark - but at least I'm not "antisocial" stuck to an illuminated reticle all night :)

Argo - the reason I set up away from the vans is to get the best shot at the northern sky (above the vans). I can just take in M51 as it skirts across the low horizon - while sitting on the ground and the dob at its horizontal limit. The goodies in the south are either high or circum-polar so it is easy to avoid the very few trees on the southern boundary.

[westsky]

Not being anti-social, just can't hear anybody when they talk to me, the headphones from the MP3 player get in the way, keeps your ears warm though :-))

David.