Cambroon Observatory night

[astroron]

Hi All the regular Astronomy night at Cambroon Observatory in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland is on again a week tomorrow, Saturday 25th March weather permitting.
Directions can be found on this forum, or Pm me or Paul (1ponders).
Camping and some limited accommadation in the house is available, but plenty of room on the verandah.
I hope to see new and old members of the group here.astroron :thumbsup: :astron: :stargaze:

[[1ponders]]

Count me in Ron :thumbsup:

[Striker]

Cant make it.....I'm already away for 3 days that week...cant risk another night or I could be devorce material.

[[1ponders]]

Then you could have 7 days a week Tony :lol:

[Xeelee]

I'd better reply rather than just come without notice......

Gotta test out the LPI which arrived today :D :D

[astroron]

Goodonya! Chris, see you here.:thumbsup:

[Moonshine]

As a Sunny Coast newbie I am really keen to get to one of your nights - but this weekend my family is hosting a canadian student here on a goodwill visit to my son's school - there is little hope/chance that I will be able to make it. Hopefully next time!

Don :(

[astroron]

Hi Don there is always April the first if this one is clouded out, or you carn't make it.astroron

[Zubenel]

Hi Ron , Looks like you can put us all down for 1st April.I'll be camping with the family. Saturday and Sunday Nights maybe.Hey Striker , Bring the MRS with you.You never know what could happen!!

[[1ponders]]

yeah Wes, she could find out how much Tony has actually spent on astronomy gear in the last 18 months :rofl:.

No matter what happens Wes even if both weekends get washed out I'll find out where you live and drop your eyepiece off to you.

[Striker]

hahaha...bring the wife along....you got to be kidding.....thats about as high risk as it gets....lol

[Xeelee]

Hey, Ron how is the weather up there?

[[1ponders]]

:mad2: :tasdevil: :( :sad:

[astroron]

Previous post says it all but here is my feelings to:mad2: :windy: :rain: :tasdevil: :cloudy:

[[1ponders]]

Well blow me down. You wouldn't have picked it in a pink fit. After so many month and months of absolutely lousy weather at night and a cyclone last week and and a cyclone this week off the coast, we finally got a decent night.

Decent, hell it was great!!!! Not perfect, but the transparency was absolutely stunning and even the seeing wasn't too shabby as the evening wore on. Shame I didn't take any gear out with me :lol: :sad: :lol: I had to come home early and it looked pretty sus before I left to go out so I thought I'd just seagull it around and check everyone elses scopes out.

So, roll call:
Astroron (16" truss) , Xeelee and his dad (8" Meade SCT), Zubenel and his children (10" ? Dob), Adelain (4" Nexstar) and friend Sonia, and me with a case of eyepieces.

A quick run down before I hit the sack. I spent the first half of the night (after I helped Ron with his LPI) using his Dob and thoroughly enjoying myself (the main eyepieces used for the night were my 16mm T2 nag and an Omni 2X barlow when needed and Ron's 13 mm Nag. The Rosette was viewed through a 55 mm ??? with OIII filter). Can't wait til the 16" lightbridges come out :D Ron and the other joined in later on.

All in all I/we hit all the high spots; Centaurus A, Omega Cent, Eta Carina ( the Homunculus was crystal clear, could easily see the lobes, in fact the whole of EC looked 3D), Saturn, M65,66,95,96,104,42,46, 47 tuc, ngc2808 Tarantula, IC2602, Spirograph planetary, Blue Planetary, Rosette Nebula, a dozen or so of Ron's favourite obscure galaxies and ngc2903 (one of my personal favs). I then borrowed Ron' green laser and gave a binocular and naked eye tour for Zubenels young daughter, Sonia, and Adelain. It was great fun listening to the excitement as each object was found. I think I might have created a couple of binocular converts tonight. Opps forgot to mention the Beehive Cluster (m44) before and M47. The list goes on. Man I hope it's fine next weekend. I'll be there all night.

So if you weren't able to make it tonight fellow SEQlders, I hope to see you there next Saturday night. I'll be there fully kitted out this time.


Oops; forgot to mention we all got to see both the ISS and Hubble just after dusk :thumbsup: Both travelled from the northwest to the northeast with max altitude around 70-80 deg facing north. I think Ron even managed to pick up the ISS in his 16" for a short while.

Oops oops. I forgot to mention that Ron showed us how to see colour (red) in M42. Once shown how it was pretty easy. If you can see colour in the Spirograph planetary then you should be able to see colour in M42. You just need to be shown the trick. The cost is reasonable. Price on application. :D
Thanks Ron :thumbsup:

[Gargoyle_Steve]

Sounds like a great night! I was wondering if the night would still go ahead as it just looked cloudier & cloudier all day from my place at Caloundra, but I noted it did seem to clear up this evening. Sadly I couldn't have made it tonight - I'm sitting here at work til 7am again - so I'll try to not regret missing a fabulous nights viewing, but if there is an evening again next Saturday I'd love to come, as would with my astro-keen brother Don too.

Wish I could see the sky from here now .......... ( *-* starry-eyed dreaming).
Steve

[astroron]

Paul omitted an Iridium flair that most of us saw:lol:
After Paul and Adelain and Sonia left we adjurned for a coffee break then rearly got into the Deepsky stuff, going through the last two issues of AS&T with David Frews Deep Sky Delights, we started with Ngc 2818 a bipolar P/N in Antlia, this object takes magnification very well and is improved by the O111 filter even though it dulls the cluster it is inbedded in.
Next stop Ngc3132, the Eight Burst Nebula, the best way to observe this object is to look of axis,also improved by the O111, onwards to Ngc3109, this object is inbedded in an arrow shaped asterism in photographs but only one side of the asterism is noticable in the eyepiece,had a look for S/N but none visible:shrug: Wes was also observing these objects at the same time and we compared views to get the difference between 10"and 16" scopes, quite a good exersize.
Then it was over to Volans and Ngc 2442, even the youngest observer was able to see the meat hook shape of this galaxy and view its interacting partener ESO 59-G11.
We decided to give the Scorpius region a bit of a tour and starting with M22, onto M17,m54,M4 and other objects in the area,we then had a look at M13 which was low down on the NE horizen, before turning the scope onto Comet Schwashmann-Wachmann which showed a nice tail and iether possible double nuculus or a star very close in the background, High mag was not able to improve the resalution.
Chris will bring warm clothes and footware in future as he spent quite a bit of time running around in circles trying to get his feet warm:lol: (temp about 15degs) at 01:30
A revisit of Cent A(Ngc5128) Omega Cent(Ngc5139) and Ngc4945 which where now much better placed for observing gave much better views and then Chris and Dad Mike called it a night at about 02:00.
I continued on till 02:30 then quit as the the moon was rising and making it difficult to do deep sky stuff.
A good night was had by all who attended.
See you all next weekend weather permitting.:thumbsup: :astron: :stargaze: