Star Stuff 2017 - Byron Bay - June24/25 with Dr Karl

[dylan_odonnell]

I'm organising an event in Byron Bay you guys might enjoy. It's not really a star party but the resort it's being held at has a fenced off, powered dark field guests are allowed to use. The lighting around the cabins is also so minimal, you could image next to your cabin if you were staying there. It's no astro fest, but the wives and kids might enjoy staying at a 5-star beachside resort in Byron Bay while their husbands nerd out!

Organised to coincide with new moon and QLD school holidays, but the main focus of the event are the speakers :

Dr Karl Kruszelnicki , Dr Katie Mack (Uni of Melb), Dr Alan Duffy (Swinburne), Dr David Malin (AAO), Dr Fred Watson (AAO), Mark Gee (NZ), Dr Duane Hamacher (Monash Uni), Jamie Anderson (Gilmour Space Technologies) and myself will be presenting keynote talks over 2 days.

Sponsored by Celestron, Bintel & ESA.

Details at starstuff.com.au (https://starstuff.com.au)

[Andy01]

Sounds great, just working on my leave pass from SWMBO 👍
Hoping to come up, with a few others from Vic!

[dylan_odonnell]

Fantastic! Look forward to meeting you :)

d

[spacezebra]

Why are just the guys nerding...says lady with 20" telescope 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

[dylan_odonnell]

Apologies! I just know my where my wife will want to be sitting given the choice between a space talk or a beachside resort with pool and day spa. I'm sure many astronomy widowers (blokes) will be at the bar too!

d

[The_bluester]

Really hoping to come along with Andy, my leave pass is more or less stamped, just working out the money side of things now.

[CapturingTheNight]

Really looking forward to it. Great lineup of speakers.

[Andy01]

Leave pass secured, tickets booked, looking forward to geeking it up :thumbsup:

[sharptrack2]

Ticket purchased and room booked when first announced, now trying to decide how many telescopes to bring, if any. :shrug:

May just bring a camera and travel EQ mount for some wide field photography. :thumbsup: Maybe add a 300mm lens to experiment with, :question: and bring the 90mm f5, or the 127mm f6... :doh: here I go again... :screwy: and it's only April, 2 more months to go. My custom box for my HEQ5 Pro should be ready by then. ;)

Looking forward to meeting other IIS'ers and putting faces to names.

[The_bluester]

I am there with Andy01. Looking forward to a geeky weekend.

About the only gear I expect to bring is a pair of binos.

[Malcolm]

I'll be there with my 10" GOTO dob helping out over the two nights. :-) Looking forward to this event, major geekfest lol.

[The_bluester]

Getting closer, Andy and I have flights and accommodation booked now

[Malcolm]

Fantastic event. It's been really good. Congrats to Dylan. Looking forward to the talks today. :-)

[Andy01]

+1 above
Brilliant speakers, Dr. Karl sure delivers :)
Well done to all concerned :thumbsup:

[aussienscale]

Dylan, I tip my hat to you sir !! What an absolutely fantastic 2 days and nights, speakers were fantastic, everyone who attended we amazing, there was not a single person, including the speakers, that you could not walk up to and have a chat, fantastic location, well run and organised event !

Congrats, great success, when do next years tickets go on sale ?

[jenchris]

Loads of fun Dylan.
You did good, buddy.
Unique experience. Our speakers were very approachable and I didn't see one unhappy face all weekend.
I don't know how you organized the giveaway telescopes all going to young aspiring stargazers but they all looked totally blown away

[The_bluester]

What an awesome event that was!

Congratulations Dylan and all the team for pulling it all together and carrying it off so smoothly over the weekend and thanks to all of the speakers over the two days. All engaging, all knowledgeable and a good dash of humor thrown in to boot.

It was also good to pick up a healthy number of things that I did not know! In particular the first presentation on Australian Aboriginal astronomy and how it was put to use was astounding. Some bits I was aware of. A lot of the information presented about the "Emu" for instance but I am sure I was not in the minority in not knowing of constellations being constructed essentially as aids to memory and to pass down the knowledge for mapping and navigation.

I had a fantastic weekend and look forward to Starstuff number 2!

[dylan_odonnell]

Thanks everybody! That was hands down the most fun and wonderful thing I've been to since my wedding! We sold out and 400 people joined us in the lap of luxury at the Elements of Byron resort. The venue was perfectly positioned with mostly low impact lighting on the easternmost and thoroughly dark edge of Australia. The food was unbelievable. Anyone staying at the resort itself was treated to a luxury experience and we just got dumb lucky with the weather. The saturday night star gazing was incredible.

The Southern Astronomical Society were the glue that held the whole thing together and the speakers were so amazing. Furthermore, most of the speakers stayed and listened to every other speaker! I gave a talk on astrophotography with Dr David Malin watching - good lord! (I asked him later if I'd said anything incorrect and he verified I hadn't ... phew).

Highlights for me included 160 people singing Happy Birthday to Mike Smith the founder of Bintel and acknowledging his recent stroke and 32 years of service to the astronomy community and hanging out and stargazing with Dr Alan Duffy. It was such an intimate and wonderful setting that the speakers themselves simply joined all the rest of us for the whole thing. Truly wonderful. We even did a live national broadcast on channel 9 on Sunday morning!

We learned some lessons and the venue has heard our feedback about the speed of catering and some of the logistics, but mostly everything was run to minute precision. We gave away 5 telescopes and made enough money to fund a planetarium for a poor school in Western Sydney for which they are truly grateful.

I'm inspired to repeat this in 2018 and though I can't guarantee the weather I can do my best to pull off everything else. Thank you to all the Ice in Space members who made it - I couldn't have done it without your support.

Dylan.

[JimsShed]

What can I say Dylan. Thank you for organising this wonderful event. I had a great weekend. Please ask the sponsors to bring more products next time as I was on a leave pass and went home with change :D

[astrodave]

Awesome event and fantastic organisation, logistics, venue and night sky!

Well done Dylan and the team. It was well worth flying up from chilly Victoria for the event. I thoroughly enjoyed it all. I was inspired to even do my first time lapse of the Sat night observing here (https://www.flickr.com/photos/152087632@N02/34792297693/in/dateposted/). Or HD here (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B02PlqQc9HAwcTBhZVZWOW5WNX M)

[Malcolm]

Best science and stargazing weekend ever! :-)

[Spookyer]

Would agree great effort from SAS to put this on. Speakers were knowledgeable and good communicators, every session was worthwhile and a variety of topics were covered. Pretty flash venue.

Well supported by the astronomy community with tickets sold out.

Well done to all involved.

Brett