Central Coast - 6th august writeup

[iceman]

Last night was great, clear all night long, not a cloud in the sky all day for that matter. It was cold, but it's been worse, and there was very little wind so it made it bearable.

Had some new crowd there last night, which was great to see.

In attendance:
- Louie (atalas)
- Anthony (frogman) and his friend Andrew
- Garth (iluvsaturn) - his first time!
- Scott (waveland scott) - his first time, and showing off his LOVELY 12.5" truss scope. A very nice piece of gear.
- Rod (rodstar)
- Mike (iceman)
- David (ving) - his first time at Kulnura!
- Ed (Orion) and George
- Narayan (seeker) and his wife
- John B (ausastronomer)

As usual, there was lots of chatting.. a few people got some serious observing in, but for most of us it was a lot of chatting, looking through other scopes and generally just hanging out.

It was so nice to see the friendly spirit and willingness to help that has come to be expected from the iceinspace crew.. John B and Louie helping to collimate Scott's 12.5" dob and align his AN. George and Ed helping Garth to collimate his 4.5" short-tube reflector, Ed helping Louie with his misaligned AN on the C11. A really nice thing to see, people helping each other.

I left about 11:10pm, a few left before me but there was still some guys sticking around for a while yet.

I saw lots of great things, I'll writeup some of the favourites tomorrow.

Great to see everyone again, looking forward to next month.

[davidpretorius]

it is nice feeling what everyone is doing with this site. 3 of the launceston boys got together on friday night at Ian's house (not sure if Ian is a iis member, but won't be long) and apart from one tree, lovely skies without the city lights. There was moonman, ian and myself. Acropolite had work. We will definately start a new moon get together every time.

[Orion]

You said it Mike!
It was a great night and I got to do some (so called imaging) towards the end of the night, we managed to get some 30sec exposures on Louie's scope as well. I'll post the pics later.
It sure was cold around 4am that's when we decided we'd had enough and headed of home.

Thanks Anthony for your hospitality and your soldering iron. :thumbsup:

[wavelandscott]

I concur, it was a good night...

It was good to get to meet the people in attendence and also get to know my gear better too.

Last night was really the first night that I got to get my scope (and other gear) out under some dark skies...I still can't beleive how many stars you can see!

The spirit of helpfulness was great to see!

[Orion]

These are a couple of pics taken last night of the Tarantula neb with the DSI.
The fist is 29 x 30sec images taken on Louie's C11. The second is 14 x 11sec images taken on my 18"dob.

[cahullian]

Sounds like you all had a great night. Sorry I couldn'd make it this time. Next month....

[ving]

yup, good to match up some faces.... too bad we didnt get to see mikes!
You see, I have this theory... Mike doesnt turn up till its dark so no one actually knows what he looks like :P prolly saves on paper bags! ;)

gee some of those galaxies in Eds scope were... fuzzy! I guess that at mag 12 its gunna be fuzzy no matter what.

Its a nice site there and I got to chase my 'lil helix around for a bit. I think the seeing wasnt as good as it looked tho because I could make out the round shape of it I could make out little else even tho it was rather bright there was no real detail...

Thanks to anthony for the use of the site and the endless coffee :D

[Rodstar]

I had a great time too. It was good to meet a few faces I have "interfaced with" on the forum, such as Scott (WavelandScott) and David (Ving). Also good to meet Garth, who lives just up the hill from me - hopefully you can become a regular, Garth! Always a pleasure to see some of the regs, such as Mike, Louie, Anthony, Narayan, John B, Ed, and George. It was particularly kind of Louie to let me use his 16mm Nagler for so much of the night!!

It was ****** cold, but to my mind the Milky Way looked as milky as I have seen it. I spent lots of time just looking up with naked eyes. What a great sight!

In terms of my viewing itinerary for the night, I spend a chunk of time exploring Sagittarius, being a good Sag myself (well, actually, I am Ophiucan, but I am yet to see my astrological reading for that!). In the main, I was looking at tiny globular clusters and some even finer planetary nebulas. A common entry in the journal for the globs was, "cute". Most look like very tiny 47Tucs, perhaps "tuc"-ed away too far for really clear viewing, but close enough to form a good impression.

Some globs in Sag I tracked down which you also may wish to hunt down some time:
M's 75, 54, 70 and 69 and NGC's 6638, 6544, 6652, 6569 and 6528

M22 is a spectacular glob, which I have described in my notes as "Beautiful glob almost 47Tuc" (with three ticks!)

Amongst the planetary nebulae, only a few rate a mention, including NGC's 6563, 6537 and 6644, which were tiny, but had discernable ghostliness.

Some of the more significant objects that I also had a look at included:
M17 - Swan Nebula, M13 - large glob in Hercules which was pretty clear early on in the Northern horizon, NGC 4945 - clear bright galactic plane visible, and M57 - The Ring - which literally looks like a stellar smoke ring!

It was fun showing some of the newbies objects like 47 Tuc, Omega Centaurus and Centaurus A.

The biggest hoot for me for the night was seeing Uranus and Neptune for the first time (Anthony - I love my "Buzz-Click"!). Both had clearly discernable colour and discs. Uranus is about twice the arc width of Neptune at the moment, and is an exquisite blue-green colour which is very like Duck-Egg blue. It blew me away!

If you are thinking of coming, but keep putting it off, you are crazy! Come join the astro-nerds next month for some instant coffee, and a not so instant stellar light display!

PS Thanks for having us again Anthony! You deserve a medal!

[asimov]

Sounds like you guys had fun. I'm envious.:)

[frogman]

You were there till 4am !?!?!?!? wow you guys were either reallllly quiet or the drugs (cold and flue) were fantastic.... after goping to bed at 11 ish i ended up watching the poker till 12:30... should have stayed out with you all......

Yeah it was a good turnout last night but there were a couple of things missing :confuse2: ummm like the people that said they were coming.... you know who you are !!!!!! :thumbsup:

OK ummm Mike yes i will get rid of my "weights set" as soon as i can get the right stuff to make her smoother.. what do i need and where do i get it !? ? Oh John B..... did you say you have some spare teflon laying around i could buy off you ?

The 12.5 truss of scott's was nice and there was some confusion if it was motorised the way it swung around in both axis without (too much) outside influence! :D

What i will do for us for the next month is get Geoffs carnav GPS and log the actual location for us so there shouldnt be so many "buzzclick" errors.....


The coffee has been care of Louie (tah dude) ..... i just supplied the urnie.

HAHAHAH i just remembered our new guests meeting my little :rundog:'y Scout..... the look on the nearly dark faces was amusing, trying to convince them that he was NOT a small horse took a bit ! :D but the puppies are only interested in what nerds do at night.......

SERIOUS NOTE THO i would like to thank you all for leaving the site the way it was when you all arived.. It is always a pleasure to have such a crew up to share the sky (and get left bickies :D).. Thank you.

ummmmm i will be looking for DSC's and components for my little dob to set her up with a push to..... so can you all keep your eyes open for a good deal for me?????? i will add to the sale bit later....

Nice to meet you all too guys ...... see you all next month


Anthony

[ausastronomer]

Froggy,

I just spent an hour looking for it and I couldn't find it, it wasn't where it should have been and I was certain it was. I have to re sort that part of my workshop soon and hopefully it will turn up, it is certainly in my workshop somewhere, unfortunately my workshop is big with lots of hiding places. I also bought a new ignition for the BBQ a month ago, put it in the workshop till I had time to fit and now I can't find that either fi.

I did find 3 once used 38mm magic sliders which I am happy to give you if you want to use those.

CS-John B

[Brendan]

hey guys sounds like every one had a good time,
my appologies for not turning up as promised, i was how ever called away to other more urgent matters (non astronomical) closer to home.

hope to make the next one

[atalas]

Yes another good night,though I spent most of It trying to figure out why my Argo would'nt work . Nice to see the regulars and nice meeting some new people as well.
The night was long for Ed,George and my self,did'nt get away till 4.00am.
ED good first attempt mate ! next month we'll try on my ED80 the focal lenths on our big scopes were to long and the seeing would'nt allow for a clear sharp shot,but still a lot of fun. Oh Scott many congrats on you Discovery purchase mate ! a very nice Dob indeed.
Anthony as always a big thank you again mate for bringing us all together .
Anyway got to go now dudes.

Louie