Rod is making available the Airfield to us for Saturday 5th of October.
I for one am in serious need of a good photon fix. And with the weather warming up, we shouldn't freeze so readily.
The Spring sky is galaxy time. Fornax, Sculptor, Grus and their buddies put up some real beauties and some real tough nuts to crack. The tough ones are also some of the closest, with several close by dwarf galaxies that have low surface brightness being a real challenge.
M31 and M33 are also placed at a better time of the night. Good seeing conditions sees these monsters display extraordinary detail. I've seen M33 as a lovely faint naked eye object at the Airfield. I'm hoping this October sees these conditions revisit us.
If you haven't been to the Airfield, access is via Medlow Bath, the next village past Katoomba heading west. The screen shots below will show the route from Katoomba. Note that the last 3km along Rutland St leading to the Airfield is unsealed. It was graded earlier this year and is still in good nick, though some ruts and some erosion gullies are forming. So take it easy on this stretch. It is an easy 2WD unsealed road.
The Airfield is at 1000m above sea level. This altitude is its greatest asset to overcome the glare of Sydney's sky glow. And as there is no farmland around, and rainwater readily drains off the poor soils up here, dew is not frequent.
The Airfield though is totally BYO. There is no power up there, so you need to bring what ever power requirements you need. Facilities are basic, there's loos, tank water, and the office building has a combustion heater and we are welcome to stay overnight there too, with the office available to sleep in too.
Please note that when entering the Airfield, take the left track of the fork - there is no access to the setup area if you head straight. Head past the "No Entry" sign and turn right up the hill to the set up area off the main runway. This airfield is only operational during the day for aircraft, so we won't have planes or helicopters land on us.
Being a dark site, and with our eyes dark adapted and many folks taking photos, please be very considerate of this and be careful of using white light. Red lighting is the norm at a dark site. A welcome courtesy is to warm folks that you will be turning on a white light BEFORE you do so. Don't have a red light? Easy, three of four layers of red cellophane over your torch will produce what we need. Red cellophane can be had from newsagents, florists and many $2 shops.
Any questions, please ask.
Mental.
Last edited by mental4astro; 24-09-2013 at 11:50 AM.
Reason: typo
The Spring sky is galaxy time. Fornax, Sculptor, Grus and their buddies put up some real beauties and some real tough nuts to crack. The tough ones are also some of the closest, with several close by dwarf galaxies that have low surface brightness being a real challenge.
Madbadgalaxyman has started a thread on these dwarf galaxies that are satellite galaxies of the MW. A link to this resource can be found here. I'll give some time to clocking these this coming new Moon. From my reading, some of these are really hard to make out.
The thought has crossed my mind, this afternoon looked superb. Watch the Mt Boyce AWS to see if the wind drops in the afternoon - if it's still a howling westerly at 3pm I'll say no.
Speaking of which the seabreeze reached that far this afternoon
Won't make it this month - but the up-side is I'm planning a 3 night trip to the Southern Highlands, so weather permitting I'll have some dark skies to get the scope into! Hope it's clear for all who go this month
Alright Jason. I'll meet you out there, mate. 7 Timer suggests its acceptable. It reckons it will cloud over at 50% at 1 AM. Moon will be rising by then anyway. Better then missing out a dark sky visit for the month.
