Hi all, well some have asked me about providing a bit of a run down to our trip into the Flinders Ranges over the same weekend that the Snake Valley Camp was held (28 Oct - 31 Oct 2005).
Well, in my eagerness to get the weekend started on Friday I rose nice and early at 5am. I arrived at Peter's at 610am, when I said that I would be there at 630. Whoops, That of course meant that we were early to Bob's place which he was not too keen about. Sorry all involved. We travelled all morning and arrived at the Hawker Pub for our Midday meal. The meal was good as were the local characters that inhabit the pub. Moving on to our final destination of Rawnsley Park Station. You can see from the shots provided of the surrounding area and our camp that we had a beautiful view of Wilpena Pound and surrounding ranges.
The amenities at the Park were well very good. Toilet and shower block was very clean and hot really hot water with an adjoining area behind to wash dishes which Peter and I grew very accustomed to visiting. The Park has a mini shop which is pretty well stocked. The owners are very helpful and even let us find out some info from the bureau as to the weather for the coming days. The park also has a rather large pool, but I am unsure at weather the general public are allowed to use it. It did look inviting though.
Friday afternoon we set up to a calm breeze and saw that the clouds were breaking up and Bob predicted that we were in for a good night. So it seemed. Bob prepared the evening meal which was very nice as were all the other meals that Bob prepared for the weekend. Including the Roast dinner on Sunday night. Thankyou Bob for cooking for us for the entire weekend.
By 9pm we had the usual people who visit and want to know what we are looking at and a stiff breeze stated making its way through the park. Clouds appeared and this ended the viewing for the night. By 11pm it was howling with the wind blowing at a great rate of knots. This did not bode well we thought, so we decide to chug down loads of liquid refreshments and listen to each others "war stories". Unfortunately for myself I was camped in a tent which nearly blew away in hurricane. I did not get much sleep that night. About three hours.
The winds eventually abated around 8am the following morning and we were greeted by skies that were going to provide a flood. It did rain for about an hour or so at which time we did what all good astro nuts do and read astronomy related mags. After the rain the Sun came out and provided a nice Sunny afternoon. Bob went for a bush walk; Peter and myself decided to go for a drive to the pound and have a general look around. We arrived back in time for a late lunch. After Luch we attending to installing Bob's knobs into Bobs scope and checking collimation with the Pico Day star that I got several weeks ago. The Star worked perfectly even in broad day light. This is a great tool and everyone who owns and SCT or Newt should consider buying one. Peter was very impressed with also, and mad several whoops regarding how well collimated his Tak was. Yes Peter your scope is well collimated. Nothing wrong with those optics. Everyone now had perfect collimation.
Toward evening the skies looked promising after an afternoon of broken cloud. Once the evening repast was had we once again got into the astronomy. Very Dark skies were seen with stars visible on the Horizon. Some of the targets viewed were 47 Tuc, Tarantula, Andromeda Galaxy, Eta Carina and of coarse Mars. By about 10pm the clouds were getting thicker and I began to wonder if we would get any images of Mars. Finally, by 12 I managed to get two Avi where the seeing was around 6/10. Transparency was not the best but the images looked better than anything that I had managed in the last two months. Find the shot here
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ead.php?t=5091 . At 12:30 we decide to pack it in and cover up the scopes. Just as we finished the skies cleared and I am sure that seeing would have been between 7 and 8/10. Being too tired to set up again we both said it will be good tomorrow night. Wrong!!!
We awoke in the morning to another cloudy day but the skies cleared and Peter and I decided to go for a bush walk ourselves. We followed Bob's instructions and ended up off the beaten track. We eventually found the Falls we were looking for and the marked track too. I knew were we were in relation to the camp at all times, so there was nothing to worry about. By the time we got back we had walked somewhere between 6 and 8 kilometres.
Once again we had a late lunch.
Sunday evening meal was roast beef and vegies. Very nice and this was once again washed down with numerous refreshments. The skies looked very good and in fact it was clear all night. Many objects once again looked at and once again we had a visit from one of the park visitors. By 10pm the seeing deteriorated to 2/10 seeing. By 12pm I just plain gave up. We packed it in as the seeing was barely 3 or 4/10. We crashed again feeling a little dejected as this was our last night and I thanked the big dude up there that I had got something the night before.
Monday morning we hurridly packed and heading back to Adelaide so that we could avoid traffic.
The weekend was good, a bit of time to relax and look at a part of the country I had never seen. As Peter was also of this view. Would we do it again. Peter and I will most definitely go again. Maybe next year. Thanks Peter for an interesting weekend.
Enjoy the Pics.
some more Flinders trivia - for the first moon mission NASA had a mapping/ telemetry?(sic) team based near Port Augusta in the southern flinders ranges (the camps old rusty tin cans are still there? - might of been cleaned up I think?) whose job was something to do with making a more detailed map/dimensions/measurements of the moon (distance?) for the planned coming missions. 
hehe conspiracy theory time! get out the tin foil hats!
