Visiting Australia this August - need advice

[shahgazer (Shah)]

Hi Everyone,

I am planning a week long visit to Australia, maybe in NSW and Queensland, sometime towards the 4th week of August (19th-27th). I am always astounded and jealous by the type of sky you have. Here back home in Kuala Lumpur, we rarely can get good clear consistent skies.

This will be my first trip to Australia, and I hope I can get some info and tips on whereabouts of a good star party session, observatories that is available during that time.

The main reason is I am scouting for a good site to setup up a remote observatory in Australia. Mainly for personal remote imaging, but would also provide some telescope observing time for anyone interested. It will also complement with some of the major observatories we have in Malaysia, but facing difficulties to utilize fully due to weather condition.

I've seen some of your observatory setups here and would really like to have a closer look and better ideas on the do's and don't in setting up a remote robotic observatory.

A collaboration with education institution would be great.

Peter Ward has helped me on some ideas of setting up, thanks Peter. And I am looking forward for anyone who is interested to help out.

Thank you in advance

Shah
MALAYSIA

http://www.falak-online.net/videoastronomy --> my new blog on videoastronomy using Mallincam Hyper

http://www.falak-online.net/gallery2/main.php --> photo gallery I took all this while

My recent trip to Side, Turkey for the 29th March 2006 Total Solar Eclipse

[mickoking]

G,day Shah welcome to IIS. I have been to Malaysia a couple of times once with the Royal Australian Air Force, I love your country (and I love Malaysian food) When I was in malaysia I did notice that the skies were often hazy how much observing do you do ?

I don't know how much I can help but to suggest Western Australia has lots of beautifull clear nights and you can fly directly from KL to Perth.

Cheers, Mick.

[shahgazer (Shah)]

Hi Mick,

That's great! Maybe the next time you dropped by Kuala Lumpur, we can meet up and have a chat. Malaysian food are kinda spicy, but as you've found out we have a lot of varities to taste!

Yes, we do suffer some hazy seasons. In fact, it's been rather hazy since the last 2,3 weeks already, and is expected to continue until Sep! Usually it is because of the open burning coming from the western Indonesian island of sumatera, and during this time of the year, the wind pattern changes and starts to blow towards Malaysia.

We don't have too many clear skies throughout the year, Usually from Feb until Sep is a slight 'dry' season. We get less rainfall. But unfortunately, that is also when we suffer the haze. From Oct to Jan is the rainy season. I would say in average, we can get good quality sky roughly 7 to 10 days a months. That includes occasion when it rains cats and dogs in the early evening, and suddely crystal clear towards sunrise!

For this project, I refered to this website http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/austmaps/

I wonder is there any other good website which shows the distribution of observatories in Australia against the yearly rainfall. Maybe from there I can get clearer idea on the best site.

Clear skies,


Shah
MALAYSIA

http://www.falak-online.net/videoastronomy --> my new blog on videoastronomy using Mallincam Hyper

http://www.falak-online.net/gallery2/main.php --> photo gallery I took all this while

My recent trip to Side, Turkey for the 29th March 2006 Total Solar Eclipse

[Dujon]

Hello, shahgazer. Welcome aboard the good ship IIC.

I can't comment on sites or observatories at the moment though I'm sure that good information will be supplied by other members of this site.

I can tell you that observing has not been easy over the last few weeks. Those up north (Queensland) have been complaining about jet stream effects and most of us down south from there have suffered from overcast conditions. Still, you've got a couple of weeks before your arrival so things could change for the better. As things stand at the moment I suspect that you will have more luck if you can find somewhere west of the Great Dividing Range.

Whatever happens I wish you well and trust that my fellow Australians will give you a warm welcome.

[shahgazer (Shah)]

Good day everyone,

I couldn't get the desired flight ticket for my planned date to go back to Kuala Lumpur from Sydney, if I fly down on the 19th. A bit frustrating because my only window of opportunity to visit Australia this year has passed by . Looks like I have to make plans for 2007.

Thanks for all of the feedbacks I've received. On the bright side, at least I can make further detail arrangements for visits on legendary sites and star parties you have.

I've found several listing of events on the web for the first quarter of 2007,
i. Star Party Downunder 2007, 26-30 Jan
ii. South Pacific Star Party on 13-15 April 2007

I am planning in way advance to join in one of those. and hopefully by then I can get the remote observatory project under way as well. If you guys have more info on those events, and any other similar events, I would really appreciate it.

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi Shah

IceInSpace is also running a star party called IISAC2007 (IceInSpace Astrocamp) from the 18-21 Jan 2006.

Some more details here: [url=http://www.iceinspace.com.au/?iisac]

You'd be made more than welcome!

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

And then of course there is the Qld Astrofest Unfortunate next years dates aren't on the website yet as we have just finished this years event. It will be sometime between the mid/end of July and end of August. Looking at the moon phases I'd say the most like time will be the 9-15th July or 6-12th August.

[33South (Chris)]

hi Shah

Something to be aware of the for the SPSP 2007 in April, the temperature will be down around 0° C so be prepared.