Although the clouds Saturday night have been mentioned previously, of the 4 nights I saw there (Wed thru to Sat) it was really only a partial inconvenience Friday night, and a few hours Saturday night that got clouded over. The days were pleasant, generally sunny, and we really didn't see any dew on the scopes at all, the driest viewing I have done since getting my dob about 4 months ago.
In addition to great viewing generally we were also treated to some great meteor activity at various times, one or 2 quite spectacular amongst them. One I saw in the extreme north was moving slow, very bright and intense, like a great yellowish magnesium ball. It only seemed to travel a short distance, but took a long time to do so!
I also came home with a great visual memory of the Milky Way on Wed night (?) stretching in all it's glory literally bisecting the sky and stretching completely from the southern horizon all the way to the northern - not only were the incredibly bright areas of the galactic band so visible but the vast dark areas stood out in comparison so well too.
After the feast Saturday night both Dr Morbius and I both had brand spanking new ep's purchased that day we were eager to try - his new 35mm (?) 2" widefield, and my new Hyperion 17mm, so even though it was clouded over we sat steadfastly near our dobs, eps's warmed and at the ready, drinks in hand (purely to ward off the cold) waiting for the sucker holes... oops, I mean waiting for the sky to clear totally.
In the meantime we had a spirited and hilarious conversation (inc drinks and nibbly's) with Dennis (nightshift), and Chris and Mike (Xeelee and his Dad) who also had some brand new gear to try out (VERY nice 99% reflectivity diagonal, and a microfocuser?). Topics of conversation ranged widely indeed, but in truth the chance to chat and have such fun was part of Astrofest that made it so special. Jeanette (jjjnettie) dropped by along the way too and joined the chat for a while.
Eventually the sky did start to show fuzzzy stars here and there briefly, we stuck in there knowing that if we had faith it would clear further.
Which it did. Then clouded. Then cleared again. And so on. Frustrating, but still quite sufficient to give our new ep's a good work out. (and Yes I do highly recommend my new Baader Hyperion ep, I think worth every cent I paid for it!) I spent some time examining the areas of the SMC and LMC (switching each time as a cloud band moved across).
I gave it up around 1 am after all as clouds appeared to be settling in again, but Randall (the good Dr Morbius) came out of his tent around 1:30 am to see a clear sky again, and I believe he then put in another 90 mins observing.
My congrats go out to the team of organisers for this event, and to the camp managers who manned the kitchen lunch and dinner time, without which I would not have been able to survive 4 days on the $5 "Hamburger and Chips" special (delicious!).
Even though the IIS team were broken into 2 "groups" - each camped and observing on the 2 separate fields basically - I think we still had a great team spirit happening, with people walking around and keeping in touch.
One final note: The IIS separate photo had approx 24 people in it while the individual pics of each of the "proper" associations had significantly less people in their pics.
IIS Rulez!!!!