Greetings from the Barambah Dark Sky Camp !

[Gargoyle_Steve]

Good morning folks!

Well we've managed to borrow some Educationa Dept. acceess for a few minutes to send this update.

We've seen 2 night skies here so far, and that's 2 nights totally free of clouds!~
;)

I am amazed again at just how dark it is here, and those who hadn't seen this sky before have been blown away by it. The detail in the dark lane running right across the sky through the body of the Milky Way is incredible ... and that was before the afterglow of sunset had even faded ffrom the sky - I kid you not.

We had a pretty good viewing of the Hubble last night, and we've been enjoying a smattering of meteors both nights. Jupiter has been so bright that it was actually bothering someone last night. :lol:

Alex and Robin have themselves all set up and were imaging away last night, and are busily processing some as I type this.

Tonight is the big night, everyone should be here by then and it will be great to meet and socialise some new friends. We still have lots of room on the observing field (it is a big field after all) and beds to spare, so if anyone is still interested grab your sleeping bags / clothes / food / astro gear and head up!

[Gargoyle_Steve]

Here's a quick smattering of some pics I've taken this morning, hurriedly resized for web consumption....... note the 2 16" scopes in the first image, one "Obsession" style, one 16" Lightbridge with a completely remanufactured rocker box. The 3rd 16", the solid tube Meade Starfinder, has just arrived while I've uploaded these pics.

[acropolite]

I really didn't need to know that....:sadeyes: Enjoy your time Steve, we expect plenty more pics (including that zero gravity recliner setup). :camera:

[lesbehrens]

wish i was there.
the flu beat me to it
have fun.
les:P

[GrahamL]

You sure pulled a few good nights out of the hat steve
:)

[Dennis]

Hi Steve

I’m so glad you’ve all had great observing weather and good company for the camp – it sounds lovely indeed. Unfortunately, family sickness has prevented us attending but one day, I’m sure we’ll make it.

Have a great time and thanks for posting the photos – it looks like a beautiful place.

Cheers

Dennis

[AlexN]

I got back to real life yesterday afternoon.. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed my time at barambah, And can safely say its HEAVEN from an imagers perspective... The skies were so dark and clear, Robin was able to spot NGC253 in his 50mm finder scope... I spotted the helix quite easily through mine...

Most importantly, The company was fantastic....

I'll put my name down now for the next one...

[jjjnettie]

I arrived home this afternoon.
Had a beaut time.
Dark skies and good company what more could you want.

[Tandum]

Hey Steve,
I got that blown tyre replaced for free :)
You asked for images. I'll dump them all in here (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?p=368611#post368611) . PM me if you want bigger ones.

Put me down for the next one too. I've withdrawn my heq5 mount from sale to use as a take away mount.

[Gargoyle_Steve]

Well it's early Friday morning, and this is my first chance to post here again since getting home late Wednesday afternoon.

Yep, we did very well weather wise - I was at Barambah for a total of 6 nights, the first 4 were literally 100% cloudless and the seeing was great, the 5th night (Monday) gave us something I couldn't have hoped for, the transparency and seeing were unbelievable! I'm not sure I've ever seen a night that good since I bought my first scope.

Sadly things deteoriated a bit later in the night when some high altitude moisture made it's presence known. Having said that, later on I was still able to positively identify and observe the asteroids Vesta (no challenge at mag 7), Pallas (still no challenge, slightly less bright), Ariadne (interesting at aroung mag 10) and eventually Juno.

The final night there was only 3 of us left: AstroRon, Randall aka Dr Morbius, and myself, and we had some drifting cloud patches around. Seeing came and went, but I had the brightest views of the Flame Nebula that I've ever seen in my 12", and for the first time I could see touches of pink in the wings of M42. All in all amazing viewing, and 6 nights of it!

Special thanks to Jakob for making the effort to attend as he is officially our furtherest travelled visitor, having travelled up from Sydney prior to the Camp. It was great to met you Jakob, just as it was great to meet a number of new faces : Robin, Barry, Noela, Colin, Peter & Tony, Wayne.

Old friends who made it to Barambah included Ron, Maureen, Terry, John, Alex, Jeanette and her son Tom, Shaun & his son Michael, Mike and Chris and Randall and his 2 sons Brendan and Jarrod!
(There's a pattern forming here! ;))

There's much more to tell, but I need to get some sleep - I do however want to thank everyone who came along to make the Barambah Dark Sky Camp what it was. We're not a huge Camp, and we probably never will be, but the Dark SKy Camp is all about friendship, having a great time during the day, and fantastic observing at night, and we had all of that in droves! A VERY large "Thank You" also to Randall, who took a large piece of the weight off my shoulders this time around by handling all the Registrar duties prior to Camp, and to Ron and Randall and John for being there to help with the set up and finishing up. Great stuff guys!!

Just a reminder for those who were imaging, we would love to be able to highlight some of your images on the Camp website (thanks Robin for already showcasing some of your great work!) so let us know what you've got that you'd be willing to share. (Jeanette we'd love to see your Horsehead image, John I am especially keen to see how your widefields came out, and I know Alex and Mike & Chris must have something special to share as well.)

I'll jump down now, I hope more of you who attended will share your experiences and stories from Barambah with us here.

Looking forward to seeing you all again next time - we'll start planning in the next week or 2, as soon as we come down from this camp!
:thumbsup:

[jjjnettie]

Here's a couple of Photos to start with.
I have heaps of the goanna but will post the "best of" later.

Back row
Jakob, Robin, Peter, Terry, Tony, Alex, I can't remember off hand this gentlemans name, Shaun, Randal, Michael, Steve, John.
Front row
Brendan, Jarrod, Jeanette, Tom, Ron, Maureen and Noela

The photo was taken on the Saturday, more people turned up on Sunday and missed out on the group photo.

[[1ponders]]

Nice group shot Jeanette. Any chance of some names to faces. There are a few people there I recognise and its good to see Randall with some hair again. :lol:

[h0ughy]

LOL and i notice Ron's hair is long as well. I havent seen some of those faces for a while.

Glad it was a great weekend:thumbsup:

[allan gould]

When is the next one scheduled for? I'd like to go

[AlexN]

Hopefully not too long away mate !! :) I'm very keen for round 2 with skies like that :D


Steve:

Heres my only victory for the weekend... Despite getting 1/5th of the images I wanted to get for the weekend, I'm still very very glad I came...

[Gargoyle_Steve]

It was a shame that you had to drop out at the last minute Les, would have been good to meet you face to face. Next time perhaps, if we don't meet up at one of Ron's gatherings first.

It would have been great to catch up with you again Dennis too, shame you couldn't make it. I know you'll make it up one day though, and we'll always have a spot for you. I hope the family is either fully recovered now or at least on the mend. Hopefully we'll get Paul along at the same time.... :whistle:

Jeanette the unnamed gent in the back row was Barry, a very amicable bloke who, along with his partner in crime Terry, made a pair of fun loving rogues that you had to keep your eyes on.
;)

Alan our plan has been to run 2 camps a year, Spring and Autumn, so we can avoid the cold winter nights and the really hot summer days, and also avoid clashing with any other events up this way.

(We have asked if they can install a pool at Barambah for us to cool off during the day .... no such luck so far.... :lol:)

As you can see we get awesome skies without having to freeze our buns off in Winter, although I was surprised that the first few nights the obs field got down to around 4° anyway. The imaging guys up near the buildings tell us it was around 3-4° warmer there at any given time.

We will be starting planing for the next camp soon and will announce dates as soon as we have them, but it will most likely be new moon either next March or April (maybe May?) depending on school holiday dates, etc. We'd love to see you make it up sometime, all the better if you can drag h0ughy along with you.
:poke:

[CoombellKid]

Ron looks like Don King :rofl:

regards,CS

[astroron]

As a certain woman said I am not amused :mad2::mad2:
Ron

[CoombellKid]

Ron,

Sorry mate, no offence intended on the nebulous region above your
eyebrows.

regards,CS

[astroron]

No offense taken ;)
He has more dark hair than me :lol:
Ron

[CoombellKid]

Nah, he can afford more of those purply/grey rinses :rofl:.... Hey Don!! it's
about time you did the roots again :whistle:

regards,CS

[Tandum]

Steve, you're welcome to use the images from the thread I already listed. Unfortunately all my images from saturday night have a real twist to them and I don't have the photoshop skills to fix them. Jeanette has listed her wide field images here (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=36441) and I'm sure she would allow you to use them as well.

[edit]
I counted 47 stars outside tonight :(

[Gargoyle_Steve]

Thanks very much Robin, we'd love to use some of those on our photo's page, you got some excellent results there! :thumbsup:

I'll confirm with Jeanette that we can post some of hers as well.

(For those who aren't aware, Jeanette's setup was positively tiny - a $300 odd dollar mount, no telescope, a G-Star camera with a Canon lens screwed on the front end - and for various reasons by Sunday morning she had captured some amazing images where others had enjoyed little success. Her innocuous little setup, even though surrounded by heavy duty mounts, high quality scopes, and a blistering array of other quality gear, was outperforming most if not all. There were plenty of joking comments about "Sabotage" when she wasn't looking.)

Alex I know you had some tech/incompatibility problems there, but the image you did get is a beaut. I'm just wondering how good your images will be next time once you have your issues sorted out, looking forward to finding out.

[jakob]

I finally getting around to read all the posts and view the pictures.
I enjoyed the time at Barambah and learned a lot, many interesting conversation and fantastic views.

Thanks to all of you and especially the organizers for the hard work that is required to put on such a fantastic event. :thumbsup:

I had a good trip back, and by coincidence happen to pass through Cambroon, your usual observing place. I love the scenery through the Mary valley, it remaids me of the Emmenthal in Switzerland, where I grew up.

Thanks for having me!

Jakob.

[AlexN]

Glad to report my tech issues are all but sorted... roll on Barambah again!! :)

[astroron]

I had a good trip back, and by coincidence happen to pass through Cambroon, your usual observing place. I love the scenery through the Mary valley, it remaids me of the Emmenthal in Switzerland, where I grew up.

:hi: Jacob, it was a pleasure to meet you, You should have dropped in for a cuppa and a chat:)
See you sometime in the future:thumbsup:
Ron

[Gargoyle_Steve]

Alex it's great news that you have your gear co-operating again, so if there's a brief version how did you deal with the apparent conflict your gear was suffering?

Jakob great to hear that your trip home has gone well, and next time I'm out at Cambroon I'll think of Switzerland.

As Ron said it was a pleasure to meet you, and as I said at Barambah if you're up this way again, irrespective of whether there's a camp or no, full moon or no, please get in touch as we'd be pleased to catch up with you again.

[AlexN]

It was a USB port related conflict Steve, that and the fact that my guide cam doesnt like running off a powered hub.. 1x4m extension cable later, it all works good as gold.