New Moon obs from Arkaroola, North Flinders Ranges

[lacad01]

While many from this forum were enjoying IISAC my family and I were camped at the Arkaroola sanctuary in the Northern Flinders Ranges, SA. To take advantage of the dark skies I had the opportunity to look through one of the two 14" SCT's on site and the views were nothing short of breathtaking :)
- Started out with the usual suspects around Scorpius: Open cluster M6 (Butterfly Cluster), globulars M4 and M80
- Tarantula Nebula (NGC2070) in the LMC was beautifully resolved
- 47 Tuc fairly smacked me in the pupil :eyepop:
- Swan Nebula (M17) was a first time viewing for me
- A peek at the Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253) also a first
- Finished off with some great viewing of Jupiter
Overall was a great night's viewing in a beautiful part of the country and the chap who operated the setup was very keen & helpful. The other nights we were there, the ED80 & EQ6 were working overtime (visual only, I wasn't properly setup for any imaging).:)

[Paddy]

I don't imagine the skies would get much darker than that. Must have been stunning.

[lacad01]

Funnily enough it could have been darker because of the incidental lighting from the vicinity of the caravan park and resort facilities but at the end of the day was monumentally better than what I'm used to in Sydney :)

[michaellxv]

Very jealous. I was up at Wilpena during the school holidays but unfortunately this coincided with the full moon. I'll have to plan it better next time.

Michael.