I'll start the ball rolling with a quick Woooo Hooooo!!! Yeee Haaa!!!
What a week!
If you feel like posting your experiences then let the good times roll here.
I have to spend some quality time with the family for 5 or 10 mins and then I'll post a full report of my week at Qld Astrofest at Camp DuckaDang later. I'll just say
Clear Skies
Great Company
Flawless tracking
And lots of pictures to come.
Thanks to everyone there, IIS and non-IIS for the pleasure of your company. What a Rootin' Tootin' week down on the farm in outback Qld.
I'm very disappointed to have missed this year's event. The timing wasn't ideal, having just moved to Brisbane and trying to get work and a new house in order.
I know, where are my priorities!?
So, bring on the pics and stories of a great week so I can see what I've missed
I posted this under who is all going to QLD astrofest but i will post it again here.
What a time at QLD astrofest. I stayed Thursday to Sunday. Gees i now wish i went the full week. WHAT A TIME .
I now know why it was in the top ten star parties in sky at night. I will post more words what i get time in front of the PC.
No i got to say it
Organization of the event was first class.
Accommodation was great.
Food provided by camp managers superb
Facilities were excellent.
Fellow amateur astronomer’s friendly warm welcoming people who I had great pleasure in meeting and talking too.
And the classes during the day were very informative and interesting.
The wife won the female counter weight throwing competition
Dennis Simmons won the catch the counter weight competition.
And to top it off the wife won an IIS beanie.
The Qld Astrofest was a blast. Went up with my friend Henry last night and stayed the night. Food and lodging was great plus we were blessed with steady and transparent skies last night. Throughout the day (we got there just in time for the vendor tables) we also caught up with various familliar faces (mostly IIS and SAS members). It was good to see all you good people, Paul (1ponders), Mark (Hodgson), Jeanette, Ron (thanks for letting me use your 16" and the 13T6 Nagler , Pete (Robbins...got a sneaky peak at the M57 and the Veil despite problems with the encoders), Pete (Marples) and Kevin (Dixon). Met several other good people and got to look through scopes of different apertures including Neptune in Astrojunk's SDM scope. Plus I got to try out my new StarBlast under dark skies (and it did not disappoint), and bagged a few new galaxies with the C6 in Pavo.....
well I had a fair time, the moon was a problem, especially Saturday morning when it rose just before 6am but I was taking darks then....
with the exception of a cantankerous G11, I had a brilliant time. I met strange people in a far away land, and had a "hoot" of a time. the best bit was I got autoguiding - the bad bit was the focus.....,
anyway here are some shots with the Pentax, I took heaps of images, but no quality ones. JJJ glad to see you up and about, Dennis it is indeed an extreme pleasure meeting with you once more, and Paul, well what is there to say about the photon collection centre you had going, but thanks for the "lift", Gerald, Ron, Steve - gees I cant remember everyones name - must be the 2000 K I have driven and the late mornings, and Phil you look very different to your typing voice
Johnathan, it was indeed a pleasure seeing that a SDM can be an imager - wow. Please PM me as we need to have a chat!!
on a sad note Alan and I were minutes away from where a fatal accident occurred near Grafton (south of by 5 minutes). we arrived literally minutes after it occurred, it was a stark reminder of the risks involved travelling to our favourite pass-time
For me there was one annoying problem which had nothing to do the organisers or the venue.
There seemed to be increase in inconsiderate smokers.
A number of smokers set up in the middle of the imaging field.
Enjoying the beatuiful crisp fresh air, then someone elses smoke floats by.
When queuing for the astrofest there were people smoking in the queues. They think by standing two feet from the queue that they weren't bothering anyone. Wrong.
Even worst was that the smokers were dropping the smokes on the ground. Around one scope there was at least 10 butts. Funny the scope had a tarp on the ground around it. There were no butts on the tarp, but all were within to 2 inches of the edge. Obviously they didnt want to get the tarp dirty, but it is okay drop the butts on the ground. It is no way to treat the great venue. I went back to the spot after the smokers left, hardly suprising they didn't bother to pickup all the butts.
I have pictures which show the problem. I wish I had the guts to publish the photos to embrass the people involved.
This is the first time in 15 years at astrofest I noticed how bad the smokers were. I know of a number of people who said they had problems with the smokers and have / will make comments to the organisers.
If smokers want to kill themselves fine, but to do it well away from others.
I will be talking to the organisers to see it they can ban smoking from future astrofest. If not, could they have a smoking area well away from the observing fields and community / common areas.
Excellent photos Houghy. Forgot to mention that Houghy also won a prize at the raffle (and so did Jeanette!). And yes Brendan I was very annoyed at the inconsiderate smokers. I was unlucky enough to be downwind of some and had to hold my breath thus debilitating my ability to see faint stuff!
Have not downloaded my photo's yet but I promise to upload soon.
Just for note. I did notice the smokers walking about and thought that it was not fair on everybody else. Myself and my wife are smokers but we went down to the putting area and once finnished put the cigs in the bin. Just in case anyone thought it was myself or my wife. Apart from that it was a great time.
Great photos Houghy. Mine never turnded out, The wife forgot to take off the exspoure compansation before the group shots. I'll post some over the comming nights got a few to get through like everyone else.
Just a quick note from me, I'm still on the road and won't be back on line seriously until the 21st, I had a ball, my lack of exerience and preparation did nothing to dull the experience. Fantastic, to meet (and reacquaint) with some of the IISers and others, Dave (h0ughy) was a lot quieter than his on site persona, [1ponders] should be renamed [1teaches](thanks for all the tips Paul). JJJ was jjjust as I imagined... warm and friendly, I recognised Gargoyle Steve from his Avatar. Ron (Astroron) was like an old friend from the first instance. drmorbius looks just as his name would suggest. Then there's Dennis....You can't miss Dennis, larger than life, almost as though he's popping out of another dimension, his commentary at the counterweight tossing was brilliant. Thanks to Peter and the others with the big dobs who gave us a glimpse of what it's like to have a 20- 30 inch monster. I wish I had more time to meet people, the 3 days went so quickly. Took a little while to settle in, particularly as HRH Liz felt a little uncomfortable at first with a crowd of strangers. On the first night, a stranger (John Smith) wandered up in the dark and started to chat, a bit like a friendly moth, flitting from scope to scope in the darkness, I suspect many at Astrofest met him. John Smith, a likely name you say. I shared a class at Launceston matriculation college with a John Smith in 1969, he was then a mature age student, the exact same fella... what a small world it is, we had a laugh and exchanged quite a few stories. I have some pics, nowhere near enough, I'll post them when I get back home.
Thanks to Anne-Louise (earthlight) and Tony (Firstlight) (did i see a couple of small flashlights there as well...) and the rest of the committee for organising such a great event and to Donna Burton and Fred Watson for sharing their experiences with us.
It was mentioned that Astrofest is going for 10 days next year, I think I'll be there for all of them.
Just for note. I did notice the smokers walking about and thought that it was not fair on everybody else. Myself and my wife are smokers but we went down to the putting area and once finnished put the cigs in the bin. Just in case anyone thought it was myself or my wife. Apart from that it was a great time.
Ian
Thoughtful and commendable behaviour – well done. I also saw Al one morning, picking up not only his butts, but those of others too. Well done Al.
JFYI after h0ughy took the above images of the imaging field I borrowed his camera to take some of the observing field. Unfortunately they didn't turn out as it was just too dark over there to get an image
to add to the many images to be posted here are the following, the imaging field at duckadang........
Hey Houghy
You’re a photo monster! I can now see why you need the proliferation of DSLR’s and 4 gig cards – you were a one man imaging machine. Amazing photos of the red LEDs bobbing around!
Great meeting up with you again. I am in awe of your prodigious planning, packing and travelling capabilities.
It is now a well known scientific fact that H0ughy can pack outrageously large, incredibly complex volumes of scientific equipment into the most cramped cars and travel for several hours following the sketchiest of scanty maps to accurately arrive at this delightfully dark, remarkably remote viewing venue. Then, in the darkest depths of a moonless night, under the dim red light of a feeble torch, he can assemble and polar align the most sophisticated of horrendously expensive astronomical equipment; RS200's, DSLR’s, cooled DSLR’s, G-11’s, EQ6’s, etc. etc.
A photo on Friday night. A bit out of focus as i did find it hard to foucus through red gel on the laptop and camera screen.
I will leave the photos to the wife to sort out as she took them of the milky way and people around the site. I did try and post a couple but i am finding it tough to bring down to max 150k when they are 10millionmp each.
Ian
You’re a photo monster! I can now see why you need the proliferation of DSLR’s and 4 gig cards – you were a one man imaging machine. Amazing photos of the red LEDs bobbing around!
Great meeting up with you again. I am in awe of your prodigious planning, packing and travelling capabilities.
It is now a well known scientific fact that H0ughy can pack outrageously large, incredibly complex volumes of scientific equipment into the most cramped cars and travel for several hours following the sketchiest of scanty maps to accurately arrive at this delightfully dark, remarkably remote viewing venue. Then, in the darkest depths of a moonless night, under the dim red light of a feeble torch, he can assemble and polar align the most sophisticated of horrendously expensive astronomical equipment; RS200's, DSLR’s, cooled DSLR’s, G-11’s, EQ6’s, etc. etc.
Sir – you truly are a legend!
Cheers
Dennis
Dennis you are a gentleman - just come out an say i am an idiot and be done with it
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Duckadang Roundup!!! - Post your experiences here
and then I'll post a full report of my week at Qld Astrofest at Camp DuckaDang later. I'll just say 
well I had a fair time, the moon was a problem, especially Saturday morning when it rose just before 6am
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