Well it's early Friday morning, and this is my first chance to post here again since getting home late Wednesday afternoon.
Yep, we did very well weather wise - I was at Barambah for a total of 6 nights, the first 4 were literally 100% cloudless and the seeing was great, the 5th night (Monday) gave us something I couldn't have hoped for, the transparency and seeing were unbelievable! I'm not sure I've ever seen a night that good since I bought my first scope.
Sadly things deteoriated a bit later in the night when some high altitude moisture made it's presence known. Having said that, later on I was still able to positively identify and observe the asteroids Vesta (no challenge at mag 7), Pallas (still no challenge, slightly less bright), Ariadne (interesting at aroung mag 10) and eventually Juno.
The final night there was only 3 of us left: AstroRon, Randall aka Dr Morbius, and myself, and we had some drifting cloud patches around. Seeing came and went, but I had the brightest views of the Flame Nebula that I've ever seen in my 12", and for the first time I could see touches of pink in the wings of M42. All in all amazing viewing, and 6 nights of it!
Special thanks to Jakob for making the effort to attend as he is officially our furtherest travelled visitor, having travelled up from Sydney prior to the Camp. It was great to met you Jakob, just as it was great to meet a number of new faces : Robin, Barry, Noela, Colin, Peter & Tony, Wayne.
Old friends who made it to Barambah included Ron, Maureen, Terry, John, Alex, Jeanette and her son Tom, Shaun & his son Michael, Mike and Chris and Randall and his 2 sons Brendan and Jarrod!
(There's a pattern forming here!
)
There's much more to tell, but I need to get some sleep - I do however want to thank everyone who came along to make the Barambah Dark Sky Camp what it was. We're not a huge Camp, and we probably never will be, but the Dark SKy Camp is all about friendship, having a great time during the day, and fantastic observing at night, and we had all of that in droves! A VERY large "Thank You" also to Randall, who took a large piece of the weight off my shoulders this time around by handling all the Registrar duties prior to Camp, and to Ron and Randall and John for being there to help with the set up and finishing up. Great stuff guys!!
Just a reminder for those who were imaging, we would love to be able to highlight some of your images on the Camp website (thanks Robin for already showcasing some of your great work!) so let us know what you've got that you'd be willing to share. (Jeanette we'd love to see your Horsehead image, John I am especially keen to see how your widefields came out, and I know Alex and Mike & Chris must have something special to share as well.)
I'll jump down now, I hope more of you who attended will share your experiences and stories from Barambah with us here.
Looking forward to seeing you all again next time - we'll start planning in the next week or 2, as soon as we come down from this camp!
