Randwick Girls' High School April 8

[hickny (Peter)]

Following very successful events in 2009 and 2010 an Open Astronomy night is being planned at Randwick Girls' High School on the school oval on Friday 8th April.

Sunset is 5.44 p.m. and the moon is nearing first quarter.

If you have a scope bring it along if not join in with those who do and share the experience.

All welcome.

Entry to school grounds via Barker St at round-a-bout opposite entrance to hospital. Plenty of parking from 4:30 pm onwards.

Obviously the event will be cancelled if the weather is not favourable. Watch this space.

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

I'll be there

Just need to decide upon my instuments of mass observation!

Mental.

[lacad01 (Adam)]

Thanks Peter, fingers crossed will be there

[Sylvain (Jon)]

Let's hope the weather cooperates

[Wavytone]

Will be there if the weather is fair...

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

Hi,

PM sent, got it in the diary

Cheers

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

I'm hoping to be there to start setting up around 5pm to start setting up. Maybe a little earlier if we can to get a little solar observing in.

Mind you, it might be 10pm after last Saturday's arrival time for me, .

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

Looking good.

Cheers

[hickny (Peter)]

The night kicked off about 6pm when the first visitors arrived. At that time there were three scopes set up a C8 loaned by Mental4Astro, Tantalus and an 8" dob. As the sky darkened more visitors arrived and we moved from the moon to Orion, Crux, the Jewel Box and later on Saturn. We were then joined by GeoffW1 and Mental4Astro and another two scopes. The visitors kept on arriving. A few clouds rolled in obscuring our targets but eventually they all went away. WCen and 47Tuc were popular and Saturn got the obligatory "Wow!". The final visitors made their way out around 9pm and the astronomers stayed on until just after 11:30pm by that time we'd seen Eta Carina through an number of different eyepieces and filters, M4, M83, NGC3918 and a host of double stars via GeoffW1's goto scope.
Thanks to GeoffW1 and Mental4Atsro for providing scopes and comentary to the visitors. We had so much fun that we intend on doing it again some time in the future. Watch this space.

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Peter,

Thanks for having us! What started as a bit of a dicey one ended with one of the best evening I seen in Sydney for a long, long time!

What amazed me too was the accuracy of your alignment of the C8! After only a 10min crash course in setting it up in the early arvo, your set-up saw Saturn stay in the FOV for more than three hours at 133X before even needing to contemplate a little shift! Damned amazing!

We also managed to bag M87 in Virgo, and by star hopping. Surprised me considering it was over the CBD, and there are no particularly bright stars to help out. If you can see M65 & M66 in Leo, M87 is just dead east of these.

I managed to complete a sketch of Eta Carina too, this time using my 17.5" dobbie. Here is a link to it's sketching forum post.

Many thanks again. . Most pleasant company, Geoff and Peter! Cheers.