Is the pony club dead ?

[sally1jack]

Does anyone have any interest in going to the pony club , where does Central coast observing go from here ? , Bretti's is to far for day trips which rules me out with family sporting events on the weekends , interested to see some opinions :question:
Phil

[ASTRO-GEM]

By pony club, do you mean mangrove mtns? :question:
If so I'm in! :D

[sharptrack2]

It is not yet dead, but has had its difficulties. A few of us have been talking about a new moon session if the weather is good enough. The problem so far is that it is not looking all that good. Allan_L is a key holder and organises these sessions.

As fate would have it, this weekend would be great if the weather breaks, but I might not be able make it. There needs to be a pretty good level of interest to make it worth while as I understand it.

I'm positive Allan or Glen would let everyone know if something is in the works.

[glend]

Well I don't have a key but others like Allan_l do. Recent discussion of the Pony Club as a venue indicated that there is major construction happening next to it soon, so future is unclear. Certainly the next couple of nights might be feasible if access is still availabe and a key holder would be going. Wait for Allan_L to post.

[Allan_L]

Hi Phil,
It is not dead, but it is less attractive than it used to be.
Lack of facilities and politics etc (I wont bore you on open forum)
That doesn't mean we can't still use it, However,
The forcast for tomorrow night is severe cloud coverage fro 7pm to 7am.
typical for a new moon :(

If you (or anyone else) have any alternate ideas for (relatively) local observing sites, for the future, there are plenty of interested parties.

Failing this, Bretti is FREE, has facilities, allows camping up to 30 days, and is darker. And at 3 hours drive is accessible.

[sally1jack]

thanks Al
bretti sounds good but to far for me without alot of organising,maybe someone can find a dark site a bit closer, ive looked but hard to find:shrug:
phil

[MortonH]

What's the major construction? Will this be a temporary or permanent inconvenience?

[Allan_L]

An international agricultural college for up to one hundred students, the majority of which will be on-site borders.

[gb_astro]

"According to a fence sign, the group is part of a Malaysian organisation known as Global Ikhwan SDN BHD, which was previously linked to a banned Islamic sect."

I wouldn't get too paranoid about this.
Looks like they were banned for mysticism and sex rather than any militant views.

https://translate.google.com.au/translate?sl=ms&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fms.wikipedia.org%2F wiki%2FKhadijah_Aam&edit-text=&act=url

Anyway once this thing is built there is sure to be plenty of security lighting going all night.

gb.

[MortonH]

Sounds disastrous for astronomy.