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Ok so we did have the first Western Sydney IIS observing meet at Linden after all.
present were Ving (David), atalas(Louie), rmcpm (Rob), and yours truly (Narayan).
Louie's mate Michael was there as was Brett White from the Linden Trust, for a short while.
It appeared the height of optimisim to rock up at the field when a light shower had started over Sydney, and the sky was 100% covered by cloud by the time we actually got to Linden.
Brett did a bit of a tour of his workshop showing us his mirror griding tools and also many giant dobs strewn around his workshop. (We did not get to look through the 20 inch or 30 inch on this night as Brett left early)
The cloud eventually dissipated , however, and those of us who persevered had several hours of observing time. (Michael, and Rob also left before the cloud cleared)
a couple of other guys who were looking to join the Western Sydney Amateur Astronomy group also showed up and stayed for a while.
We had four scopes on the field -my ED 80, Louie's 5 inch Takahashi Newtonian, Ving's 8 inch Dob (and a DS 114 belonging to Garth, one of the newbies) and my 12 x 60 binos
Aperture ruled as it always does-the most stunning sights were through Ving's dob (using Louie's nagler)-especially views of various nebula using a LP filter.
There was a fair mount of sky glow because of low cloud in the East reflecting Penrith light but Ving was on fire finding faint fuzzy after faint fuzzy including the Saturn and the Helix- despite the sky glow -as also tempel 1 which provided surprisingly hard to detect
Louie helped us find the Ring and Dumbell nebula-who needs a GoTo eh, when you have someone to guide you with a laser pointer -the Ring nebula in particular was stunning through the 8 inch and clearly resolved in my 80 mm, though I had to borrow a 7.5 mm eyepiece to resolve it.
We observed the Cocoon nebula, also NGC 4595, M13-first time for me-this object doesnt ride high enough to be visible from home, plus all the usual objects-the Swan, the eagle, the Lagoon and Triffid, Eta Carina, M6, M7, The Northern
Plaeides, Omega Centauri, Centaurus A and possibly a bunch of other objects that I have forgotten (afraid am not disciplined enough to take notes)
Unfortunately while I took all the bits and pieces I forgot the most important link-the camera so could do no imaging. It was a bit windy though so maybe it wasnt the best night for it anyway.
Particularly stunning for me was the great Sagittarius Star Cloud through my 12 x 60s. as also globular 6752 through the same.
We finished up at around midnight or maybe a bit later. Thanks Louie and David, we need to do this again
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