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The graze this morning was a fair success. Observers in Melbourne, Bright and Canberra were clouded out. I've yet to hear from the bloke at Bungonia but I suspect he also had cloud.
Fortunately the Sydney group had good weather. Prior to the event the only bit of cloud was over the moon but even it was wispy and perhaps we would have got results through it (thin cloud isn't necessarily terminal - one can often still see the star). Unfortunately some observers battled with the trees (mea culpa, I didn't do a pre-graze reconnaissance and just relied on google earth images).
We had nine observers, 5 video and 4 visual. One of the video observers had equipment problems and so got no results (it happens to the best of us) but the rest had a great time. I had 9 events (including a 'flash'), another observer has reported timings for 10 events, one video observer had 6 and another 10-12 etc. I reckon we will total 60-70 events. I'll post the results when they are all in, however the data coordinator is leaving for a two week cruise on Tuesday so it may be a while.
As the graze was at 5am, we were packed up by about 5.30 and it was breakfast time. I took a portable BBQ and we retired to the picnic area at Audley for a dawn BBQ. This was the first time I have cooked a BBQ by torchlight!! By the time the food was ready it was light enough to see. We were early enough to avoid the feathered tourist-peckers and found they arrived in the order: wood ducks, magpies and then kookaburras. Everyone else was gone by 7.30 but I hung around for a bit and was rewarded with a sighting of an azure kingfisher.
Some days this hobby rocks!
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