ASWA Dryandra Astro Camp

[WadeH (Wade)]

As a new member of ASWA this will be the very first astro camp for the both of us (my lovely wife Margaret and of course me!). Hoping to get down there late Friday afternoon for two nights of wonderful viewing and lots of new friends.

Only about 2 1/2 hours from home so just a comfy drive. Should be good weather with a nice high pressure system arriving just in time to see the end of this cloud for a while.

[hilb]

Hi Wade,

We are all very excited about the promise of such good weather.

Should be a great weekend of socialising and stargazing.

Cheers,
HilB...

[TrevorW]

Hi Wade can't recall if I met you on Saturday night.

It was my first dark sky trip (came along as a visitor).

I was set up with all the young guns with their big scopes doing imaging

Must admit I was impressed by how well prepared the young guys where, I had nothing but power issues all night.

My laptop battery went dead
My mount power pack gave up the ghost
My camera battery needed changing half way through the first set of images
Borrowed a laptop, had to install PHD and then it too died
Gave up about 1:30am and crashed in my car

Lesson learnt though is to get a big portable power supply

Witnessed quite a number of meteors and the sky was alive with stars

Apart from the bugs and unusal warm weather it wasn't too bad a night

Definitely will have to get prepared for the next one

[WadeH (Wade)]

Hi Trevor,

I did meet a Trevor but I think maybe another along with Sean, two of the "young guns" as you say with a Celestron NexStar 5 SE (very nice unit) and two 12" Skywatcher dobs!
It is hard to put names to faces after the dark isnt it? Our first time also at a group event and first with ASWA. Must say very impressed and huge bouquets to Hillary and all of the organisers!!
Quite a few IIS'ers as well. Good to be able to finally put a face to a name.
Great weather although hot on Saturday (when we got back into mobile range I had three fire callouts on my phone from Sat. 3rd alarm, thats getting serious.They knew I was away though so was ok for me. But signs of the season to come I think.)
Sorry to here of your problems Trevor, my scope is all manual so all I do is know how to read a chart, spin the scope and be patient while I hunt down the object, took me an hour last night to find M77 but glad I spent the time. Latter I'll try to write up a report of the weekend.
Cheers all

Wade and Margaret.

[seanliddelow (Sean)]

The bug nebula and m77 were sure hard to find. Im currently interested in a Meade 12" LX-90 ACF from Bintel as im a very lousy star hopper.