Blue Mountains, Katoomba Airfield- January 16'th

[mental4astro]

Happy New Year everyone!:cheers::party2:

Katoomba Airfield is available to us for this January New Moon for Saturday the 16'th.

It will be an interesting night as a local Radio Ham bash will also be happening. Their event will go over into Sunday so a few will be camping over night. Rod tells me that they will be set-up on the far side of the airfield to us behind the bush separating the two runways. Now we'll have light and radio evidence of ET!! :ship2:

As I suggested in the last thread for the Airfield, the road leading to it DID get seen to by a grader. Nice smooth run all the way now. No evasive action needed to avoid pot-holes, :driving:.

As usual, the Beer fee applies. Please.

Hope to see you there, :cloudy:.

Mental.

[En1gma]

Hopefully I should be there!

Rob

[Wavytone]

I'll be there, weather permitting, with scopes this time.

[eclipse]

If weather is good we both will be there as last time. Thanks once again for your organisation. Les and Deb

[lacad01]

Booked in the calendar, hoping the weather is good :prey:

[Manav]

I'll be there with a couple of buddies, we originally planned on going to the Hargreaves lookout but this sounds way better!

[Wavytone]

I'll be in Blackheath (in the Kanimbla valley) Saturday evening (9th), will take a scope in case it clears - nothing wrong with third quarter as far as I'm concerned. Could meet up if anyone else feels the urge; Hargraves would be perfect as it's up the hill from where I'm staying.

[charsiubau]

We'll be in Blackheath on Saturday 16 January and would be interested in joining you at the airfield if the weather is good.
Ken and Bronwyn

[mental4astro]

The more the merrier!

Even if you don't have a scope, or are tyre-kicking for a scope, come have a squiz.

[flawedprefect]

Oooh - I think I want to come along to this. I'm getting a few new bits and pieces to bring along and try. What time will you all be convening?

[flawedprefect]

I'm not familiar with the "beer charge" can somebody enlighten me on the etiquette? Is it "BYO beer and then some to share" or is it "bring funds for pre-bought VB?"

[En1gma]

We all pitch in for a case of beer for the owner of the Airfield. Sort of like an entry fee.

More people, less charge I guess.

Rob

[Wavytone]

Just returned from a nice weekend away in the Kanimbla valley, the valley west of Blackheath and west of Hargraves lookout.

While tiny black flying bugs were in plague numbers at sunset, after having dinner and a shower I returned to the scope when things had cooled off to find the bugs were gone and had a very pleasant time there. On both nights the seeing round midnight was pretty good, maybe 8/10 and quite dark, distinctly darker than last time at Katoomba airstrip. An interesting experience but Hargraves remains better (no plagues of bugs).

[mental4astro]

That's it, :thumbsup:.

Wavy, I've only been to Hargraves once, and then it was amazing too. It might be that Hargraves may have the edge on the Airfield, but the viewing area is much more difficult to get to: a 50m soft gravel path from the car park as the cars cannot be close at hand (the viewing area is all gravel too), and the site is exposed to any type of wind. I'm quite happy with the Airfield.

It would be interesting to do a direct comparison, going to one site and then the other. Best way to tell. The are only a couple of km from each other in a straight line, but closer to 10km by road.

[Manav]

BOM says rain all week! :( Hope they are wrong.

[sasup]

I heard rain on and off all week. I have not even had a chanse to try the scope.:sadeyes:

[Manav]

Same here! I want to try out my autoguiding :(

[Wavytone]

Alex,

To compare the darkness of Hargraves vs Katoomba... I'd do it with a camera like my little LX3 taking 2 wideangle shots of the sky horizon to zenith, for 1 min at f/2 at each site. The difference in sky brightness should be readily apparent on the camera.

Might be a good opportunity to use my panorama head on the tripod and make some complete 360's or stitch as a cubic VR... Hmm.

Anyway I'm very glad I went last week as tomorrow night will be clouded out for sure.

[mental4astro]

Oh my gosh, the sky has cleared up!

Please, please, please, no-one buy a new scope!!!! Not until Sunday!

PLEASE!!!

Wavy, you've come up with a brilliantly objective method.

[AG Hybrid]

Ahh found the thread just in time. Ill be there too! Do we met at linden or go straight there? Weather isnt looking good though.

[GeoffW1]

Aaahhh,

Bad luck with dates again, it is our 39th anniversary, and I would not make a 40th if I attended.

Still interested tho

Cheers

[mental4astro]

Happy anniversary Geoff! Do what you must to survive, mate! That comes first.

Meet at the Airfield is the easiest. Less mucking around that way.

[mithrandir]

Alex,



It didn't take long to cloud over again - about the length of time it took to load all the gear in the car and drive to the local darkish site.

What sort of time would you be making a final decision on going?

It appears to be about an hour round trip from the airfield to Hargraves. I've got a shiny new SQM-L.

[mental4astro]

I hoping to be there latest 8pm. It takes me nearly 2hrs to get there. So I guess if things are no good by 6pm, and the weather radar and local live webcams don't show improvements pending, then I'll have to leave things for next month.

Katoomba's Scenic Skyway has a live webcam available for public use. I often check on it before heading out.

See how we go.

[mithrandir]

It's about an 1.5hrs from here.

This one? http://www.scenicworld.com.au/index.php/scenic-world-info/interactive-web-cam

Neat. I like the way you can take control of it. Low cloud up there at the moment.

[Manav]

Hi Alex,
You can also check out the Sydney Star Gazer (http://sydneystargazers.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/viewing-conditions-for-sydney-%e2%80%93-saturday-night-2/) for details on the cloud cover. Its been good on the previous predictions Ive checked.
Regards

[eclipse]

Alex, we won't be able to make it tonight, but hopefully next month if it is still on and the weather is good we will be there. Les and Deb

[flawedprefect]

Dammit, gonna have to pike tonight. Yup, it's a work thing.

[mental4astro]

I just called Rod at the Airfield. They just had 34mm of rain in the last hour. Best of all, it's stopped and is clearing from the south-west. There is one heck of a storm front approaching Sydney from the west. It's clearing the mountains now.

I'm making the dash upto the Airfield. I'll be picking up Peter and seting off. Hope to get there around 8pm.

Sorry to see Les, Deb and Paul can't make it. Hope to see others there, :astron:.

Mental.

[mithrandir]

Sorry I won't be there either and I was really looking forward to meeting the crowd.

Have had a headache all day but while it's getting better it's not up to the OK to drive stage.

[Manav]

I'm piking as well due to the cloud conditions. Sorry guys!

[lacad01]

Being the optimist I decided to trek up and am at the airfield now, she's not looking too flash :( couple of possible sucker holes but the thunder doesn't sound too good. Oh well will see if Alex & Peter turn up and maybe drown our soorows :)

[lacad01]

Aarrgh it's bucketing down :mad2:

[AG Hybrid]

Yeah, I lost my nerve after you said 34 mm of rain. Dont really want to take my corolla down that dirt road after all that rain. I checked that camera at the 3 sisters at about 6 pm and the clouds were blacker then egypts night. That was enough to convince me I should go and take a nap instead.:sadeyes:

[mithrandir]

Alex said the road had been graded so it should have been OK if you didn't hurry.

We saw a Corolla after it went down the Ullarra to Hughenden road - in the dry - at 50Kph. You could plant an orchard on the back window. They had slid off the road once trying to handle the ruts - with no damage. We'd done it at around 100Kph. The advantage of constant 4WD.

[AG Hybrid]

If I had my hilux yeah no problem, but not my little corolla! I did it in the dry back in october, and I drove through it slow at about 25Km/s since it was like a mine field, and my entire rear of my car had about 3-5 mm of this fine silty yellow clay. And a graded silt/clay dirt road can be quite slippery when wet. Im sure in the end of the day its ok. But I didnt really want to drive 70 kms each way, to be clouded out.

You know whats going to happen though right?

Tommorow Alex and Rob are going to report they had clear skys and brilliant seeing :lol:

[AG Hybrid]

Mind you. If I was to do 100 kms down that road without it being graded in my hilux, my spine would be broken, my torse - a bag of mush, my hip - shattered. The suspension was so damn hard!
Honestly, it would be like falling down a flight of stairs in leg calipers.

[mithrandir]

You can't have read Adam's post.

[En1gma]

didn't end up going.

Stuck myself at home.

[mental4astro]

You betya!

We got to wentworth falls soon after 8 (sorry, bit late. Shame I didn't hvae your No. Adam, I'll PM you a little later), with Peter and a mate, Ivan. Started to rain so had pizza. Rippa storm happened.

When we left the rest't, very light rain. We umed and ahed for 15 min by which time rain stopped. I KNEW it would clear, so we went to a pub in Katoomba for a juice. Guess what? In the next half hour it was clear!

We were set up by 11pm and the sky was ablaze with stars!

Saturn, Mars, sombrero, Centurus A, M 83.

Peter had his new Odyssey I. First thing he targeted was M42 "WOW! I've got goose bumps all over!".

I had installed a new 2" focuser on my 10". WOW again.

Ivan was also blown away with his new 8" dobbie!

Got home at 4am

[Wavytone]

Aaaargh.

I took one look at that mass of grey and just couldn't believe it would clear. Woke up this morning to clear sunshine and thought "bugg**". Still, at least I had 3 hours flying yesterday and succeeded in making a cubic VR panorama for the first time last night.

Next time I get the chance I'm all set now to make a cubic VR of the night sky :)

[lacad01]

you got to kidding me man, I hung around till 8:20 when it was pouring down and though twice about waiting a while longer but then again even if it had cleared I didn't feel too thrilled about setting up on soggy ground, oh well them's the breaks