[glend (Glen)]

A quick report on conditions at Bretti over this past New Moon. Allan_L and I went up on Monday and found Sydney guys (Jason, Dunk and Edison) already there. It was very crowded (school holidays no surprise there), and our usual spot was occupied by a large group - complete with their own pavilion, bon fire pile, pumped water from the river, and far to many area lights. The Sydney boys, having arrived first, decided to setup in the area now referred to as Bretti Heights (the southern ridge flat above the valley floor).

Conditions were somewhat impacted by the large crowd, and their lights. However, up on Bretti Heights, we had pretty good seeing on Monday night until the strata layers of fog started to settle. I forgot to take a SQM reading this night. The valley floor camper lights were mainly shutown by midnight. At a guess it was not as good as Tuesday night but useful none the less.

Tueday, Geoff arrived, and that night was easily the best of the three, with a SQM reading of 21.71 and no fog or cloud and we were all still going at 1:30am looking at Andromeda and Orion. A lot of imaging going on and Allan-L was getting through his observation list.

On Wednesday John (fizics) arrived at Bretti Height and Rick and Lynn on the valley floor (their van could not get up to Bretti Heights, and they had other people joining them). Rick wandered up for a session with us that night. SQM reading was 21.43 . The night activites were cut short by cloud that built in from the west and rain was forecast, so by 11pm most of us had packed it in (and packed up gear in anticipation of rain). The rain started early in the AM ( I heard it at 4:30am). The rain was well set in by dawn and everyone except Geoff packed up and headed home. Geoff was going to stay until the weekend, and Rick was going to be around as well.

So Tueday was the Best Night and well worth the trip. Hopefully someone will post up a photo of Bretti Heights for future reference.

Thank to Allan_L for the Apple Charlotte and the memorable Port, and to Geoff for making his electric pump shower tent available to the attendees.

Until next time.