gaa_ian
26-09-2006, 03:37 PM
I just had to post the full story of our weekend Astrocamp, we had a ball :D :
With clear skies & 4WD's packed full of scopes & camping gear it was on the road for the 50km journey to an observing site on the "Track Out"
Our site is a large disused "borrow pit", with a good clear horizon in all directions.
With Shade tents up & Scopes ready for action Don, Louise, Graeme, Martin & myself settled down to a BBQ dinner.
Observing that night was only occasionally disrupted by the odd cloud, as we toured the deep sky delights such as the Trifid, Lagoon, Omega, Ring & Dumbbell nebulas to name but a few!
Bright Galaxies included Sculptor, Andromeda & after a bit of searching the Grus Quartet were also sought out.
Most of the views were low Magnification with the 18" as we had been having a little difficulty with the collimation during setup.
Rising on Sat morning we were greeted by mist drifting through the trees as the sun peeked above the horizon.
We witnessed and were able to photograph a "Reverse Rainbow" silhouetted against the mist, beautifully captured in this photo by Martin.
After a hearty BBQ breakfast we came to realize the reason for the difficulties with the 18" scope, as it had slipped off it's mirror cell on one side, a problem we quickly set right.
With lots of time on our hands during the day a few of us found a safe spot for a dip in the rapids of the Gidies River (You have to presume that each waterhole has its own resident Croc !) My rule is: if you can’t see the bottom of the entire waterhole, Don't swim in it!
Several Hrs were spent that day planning the evenings observing session, something we do not often take the time to do. That’s the great thing about going camping; you have the time on your hands to do the kind of things, which many of us would not fit in to our hectic daily schedules!
Late that afternoon we were joined by Notch who made an "Exciting" entry into the camping area.
Don, who was celebrating his 52nd Birthday, was quite pleased to received a great little book highlighting many deep sky delights from Notch when he arrived!
We settled into an evenings viewing after a big feed of "Healthy Heart" sausages cooked up by Don on the open fire & we were joined shortly after by Francois for the evening.
The lists prepared that Arvo really proved their worth as we set the LX-90 (Go-To), to the task of finding these deep skies beauties & with a little Laser assisted guidance we directed the light sucking power of the now correctly aligned 18" Dob "Big Blue", to really show the true beauty of the celestial delights we had chosen that afternoon.
Starting out in Scorpios & Ophiuchus we toured a succession of bright Globular & Open Clusters.
With a couple of fine French & Aussie wines consumed by this stage, it did not take too much prompting to get the imaginations working on some of the clusters we were observing.
As a result, a few bright star clusters with otherwise bland NGC numbers, now have new names.
NGC6144 shall now be known as the "Lonely Hearts Cluster"
NGC6192 is the "Left Turn Arrow Cluster" &
NGC6216 will forever be known as the "Dorothy the Dinosaur Cluster", Wake up Don :-).
We now know for sure that the ancients, who named the classic constellations we see in the sky, were certainly drinking the same kind of fine wine that we were!
After the first 6 globular clusters in Ophiuchus, the group was starting to suffer a bit of "Globular Overload", so we shifted our attention to the classic sights in the Sagittarius & then Cygnus region.
As a few people drifted off to their tents, we turned our attention to the elusive Neptune & Uranus with the benefit of the LX-90's Go-To ability & yes; they are still small blue green disks!
We finished of the night at midnight with a tantalizing look at the Tarantula Nebula, low down on the Horizon in the Large Magellenic Cloud. This is certainly an area of the sky that will merit more attention with the big Dob, later in the year as it rises higher in the southern sky!
With a BBQ breaky & the inevitable pack up on Sunday morning, our 2nd annual GAA Astrocamp was over for another year.
The only thing I would do different next year is to go even further out on the track, as we were surprised to still see the effect of the sky glow from the town of Nhulunbuy & especially from the Refinery, 21 km away as the light travels.
With clear skies & 4WD's packed full of scopes & camping gear it was on the road for the 50km journey to an observing site on the "Track Out"
Our site is a large disused "borrow pit", with a good clear horizon in all directions.
With Shade tents up & Scopes ready for action Don, Louise, Graeme, Martin & myself settled down to a BBQ dinner.
Observing that night was only occasionally disrupted by the odd cloud, as we toured the deep sky delights such as the Trifid, Lagoon, Omega, Ring & Dumbbell nebulas to name but a few!
Bright Galaxies included Sculptor, Andromeda & after a bit of searching the Grus Quartet were also sought out.
Most of the views were low Magnification with the 18" as we had been having a little difficulty with the collimation during setup.
Rising on Sat morning we were greeted by mist drifting through the trees as the sun peeked above the horizon.
We witnessed and were able to photograph a "Reverse Rainbow" silhouetted against the mist, beautifully captured in this photo by Martin.
After a hearty BBQ breakfast we came to realize the reason for the difficulties with the 18" scope, as it had slipped off it's mirror cell on one side, a problem we quickly set right.
With lots of time on our hands during the day a few of us found a safe spot for a dip in the rapids of the Gidies River (You have to presume that each waterhole has its own resident Croc !) My rule is: if you can’t see the bottom of the entire waterhole, Don't swim in it!
Several Hrs were spent that day planning the evenings observing session, something we do not often take the time to do. That’s the great thing about going camping; you have the time on your hands to do the kind of things, which many of us would not fit in to our hectic daily schedules!
Late that afternoon we were joined by Notch who made an "Exciting" entry into the camping area.
Don, who was celebrating his 52nd Birthday, was quite pleased to received a great little book highlighting many deep sky delights from Notch when he arrived!
We settled into an evenings viewing after a big feed of "Healthy Heart" sausages cooked up by Don on the open fire & we were joined shortly after by Francois for the evening.
The lists prepared that Arvo really proved their worth as we set the LX-90 (Go-To), to the task of finding these deep skies beauties & with a little Laser assisted guidance we directed the light sucking power of the now correctly aligned 18" Dob "Big Blue", to really show the true beauty of the celestial delights we had chosen that afternoon.
Starting out in Scorpios & Ophiuchus we toured a succession of bright Globular & Open Clusters.
With a couple of fine French & Aussie wines consumed by this stage, it did not take too much prompting to get the imaginations working on some of the clusters we were observing.
As a result, a few bright star clusters with otherwise bland NGC numbers, now have new names.
NGC6144 shall now be known as the "Lonely Hearts Cluster"
NGC6192 is the "Left Turn Arrow Cluster" &
NGC6216 will forever be known as the "Dorothy the Dinosaur Cluster", Wake up Don :-).
We now know for sure that the ancients, who named the classic constellations we see in the sky, were certainly drinking the same kind of fine wine that we were!
After the first 6 globular clusters in Ophiuchus, the group was starting to suffer a bit of "Globular Overload", so we shifted our attention to the classic sights in the Sagittarius & then Cygnus region.
As a few people drifted off to their tents, we turned our attention to the elusive Neptune & Uranus with the benefit of the LX-90's Go-To ability & yes; they are still small blue green disks!
We finished of the night at midnight with a tantalizing look at the Tarantula Nebula, low down on the Horizon in the Large Magellenic Cloud. This is certainly an area of the sky that will merit more attention with the big Dob, later in the year as it rises higher in the southern sky!
With a BBQ breaky & the inevitable pack up on Sunday morning, our 2nd annual GAA Astrocamp was over for another year.
The only thing I would do different next year is to go even further out on the track, as we were surprised to still see the effect of the sky glow from the town of Nhulunbuy & especially from the Refinery, 21 km away as the light travels.