Snake Valley Astro Camp March 2007 reports

[Rob_K]

No reports yet, so might as well start. Stayed 2 nights – Fri & Sat – and thoroughly enjoyed myself. A big thanks to Ken, Darren and the rest of the SVAA for putting on a great show, and the Snake Valley dark skies didn’t disappoint! Lots of highlights for me – good company, staring at faint fuzzies down the eyepieces of better scopes than mine, Ken’s work with the ToUcam, moonrise in the mornings, Jupiter in good seeing through an 18", and a valuable lesson in the dangers of a serious obsession with astronomy! Some photos attached.

Cheers-

[iceman (Mike)]

Excellent Rob, sounds like a great time. Glad you got clear skies!

Look forward to more reports + pics!

[bird (Anthony Wesley)]

Sounds like you guys had a good time - I'm sad to have missed this one - hopefully I can get to the next one!

Bird

[erick (Eric)]

Yep, we set up next to Rob for as much of Friday evening as we could stay. Sat out the early clouds - or I should say, "stood out", by making friends and looking at beautiful scopes. Then the clouds cleared - Snake Valley did not disappoint. Lots to see. Many thanks to Rob for finding Comet McNaught for us so we could say farewell to her. Thanks Darren, Ken and everyone else there.

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

I am just back from the last night of the camp - the only one I could make it. It was great to catch up with the Monday morning diehards - skies were just right: clear till about 1am, and then gradually got more and more overcast - good thing too because I had to drive 3 hrs to work this morning.

Sorry to report that Ken has become a full time imager - I don't think he looked thru an EP the whole night! Grabbed some very nice deep sky shots with his modded toucam though - omega cent, galaxy n4945 and its smaller neighbour, m42, and you have got to see his Sirius shots!

[danielsun]

Let me say a big thanks to Ken (Ballaratdragons) and and Darren (wombat in space) for organizing an excellent weekend!!!!
It was great to catch up with everyone and the view through Paul's (Rumples) 18" was unbelievable!!!!! Incredible detail!!

The Saturday night dinner was very yummy (also thanks to Angus and the ladies) The night sky was magnificent as usual and the company was great!

I must say a special thanks to Bert avandonk for donating two of his excellent images fully framed which i was rapt to have won in the raffle and are now proudly on display on my living room wall.

Overall a fantastic camp as usual and cant wait for the next one!!!
Here's a couple of pics.

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Yep was a great camp, got heaps of images, more to process. Took them all on an ED80 modified by Bert, it performed really well and as I get to use it more and more I am sure this thing will be a killer on widefields

The Camp was great, was good to meet, Daniel, Steve, Darren, Ken and everyone else, sorry if I dont mention you personally I dont mean to offend.

Hope to come up next time with wife and Kids, they will love it. By then I will be autoguiding

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

The Camp was excellent!!!!!
Pity more didn't come.

The folks who booked but didn't even turn up missed out on a fantastic time, absolutely terrific skies and the best Saturday night feast yet! Boy, we were stuffed.

Andrew (Astroman) and I had our imaging gear running flat out while all the other scopes (including Pauls 18" SDM) were giving all the visual ooohs and aaahhs.

We had lots of visitors from not only Snake Valley, but from around this whole part of Victoria. Even 2 ladies came along from the Ballarat Astro Society bearing cakes and a big bowl of cream to slap on top of them!!!

Darren ran around doing his electronics repairs, computer repairs and anything repairs as problems with gear arose, and Daniel took a zillion photos as usual

And we also had a few arrive and book in out of the blue! One guy was on his way back from an Astro night with friends in Melbourne and he saw the signs out on the road on Friday Afternoon, followed the signs and stayed 2 nights!!

I went troppo with scopes mounted on the EQ6. Looked like some wierd rocket launcher but they all did have a purpose.

Anyhow, preparations are under way for the November Camp, and it should be a biggy! Even the kids will have stuff to do

Thanks to all that came, it is the people that make an event, not the sky. The sky is just a bonus

1. rocket launcher rear
2. rocket launcher front
3. mission control

[GrampianStars (Rob)]

Bugger
Sounds like a good time was had
I was moving house all w/e
didn't even get some Sat nite viewing in & sky was very still
Anyway I rewarded myself & ordered a triplet Bino's from Lee

[h0ughy (David)]

Ken that is impressive, arethey AMRAM or SAMS?? no wonder you melted the lenses. Great to see a good time was had by all

[mill (Martin)]

I had a great time at snake valley and the views were breathtaking.
Where ever you pointed the scope you could see something.
Thanks for organizing this kamp , Ken and Darren