Got home today just on dusk and then slaved for several hours to emty the car and trailer.
We had a great
Astrofest again this year, and I want to thank all the people who attended and made so great. Anne-Louise and I always seem to get kudos for the staging of the event, but everyone who has organised such events knows that it cannot be attributed to one or two individuals, rather it is the team.
In no particular order I would like to thank on the committee:
- Pat Pearl - SAS
- John and Diane Hughes - SAS
- Peter Bester - AAQ
- Mike Ford - SEQAS
- Wendy Colvin - SEQAS
- Bob Grimes - ATMQ
- and of course Anne-Louise - BAS
Volunteers:
- Gary Gawronski
- David O'Driscoll
- Terry Cuttle
- Everyone else who attended and assisted us setting up the hall for the speakers and workshops, kept their areas/bunkhouses clean, etc
- Everyone who attended
We managed to have great weather for most of the 9 nights. One evening wehad about 30 laptops in the Dining Hall sucking as much power as Tarong could supply to process images for the first two nights. I went to bed before midnight, but I was told that the sky cleared for more imaging to the morning.
The following night was clear, then the next night (Wednesday?) we had light cloud for most of the night. The next day there was plenty of cloud all day but after the Sun set, the sky cleared. All the remaining nights we had clear skies, although there was variable seeing. I can't report how clear it was for the duration of each night as I only pulled 2 nights past 4:00, and a few more to about 2:00.
What I can report is that a couple of those nights were virtually dew free, last night in particular. I should also note that it was unseasonally warm... positively tropical.
Some highlights for me of this years Queensland
Astrofest, once again in no particular order was:
- Talking to the organisers and some 300 attendees of Starfest 2009, a star party run by the North York Astronomical Association in Canada. Just before 23:30 on Friday night Starfest telephoned us and we used a cordless speaker phone and two-way radios to transmit and converse around the fields.
- I actually was able to take some images that I am proud of, again thanks to Terry for his assistance setting up my gear while I was trying to do the same with our youngest in hand. Terry's foundation work and aligning was invaluable to me
- The entertaining Counter Weight Toss, which saw my eldest son narrrowly defeated in his class, a creditable second. There was also reenactment of the State Of Origin clash which saw NSW, represented by Mossie thrashed by Queenslander Blake Pearl in the first two rounds, before snatching a win in the third.
- The Astro-photo competition in which I won for the non-telescope category. There were so many great photos and quite frankly I did not think I had a chance. I was so stunned I was speachless... a state that does not occur often in nature
. I neglected to thank the other entrants for their great work, and I would like to do that now... you people really set a high standard to beat.
Here are a couple of images I captured from early in the `Fest with some processing. Not sure of the full details, need sleep.
Hub over the camp is a stack of 2, 10-20mm @ 10, 350D... ran out of Scorpius for more.
LMC is a stack of 6, 70-300 @70, 400D
M31 is a stack of 5, 70-300 @ 70, Canon 400D
SMC is stack of 4 (?) 18-55 @ 55, 350D
Anne-Louise asked if I could post a few of her photos... these are not mine and I am jealous
. Again not sure of the full details and too tired to look up the file stack
South pole over Duckadang, 10-20 @10, 400D
Scorpions tail, stack of 5, 70-300 @70, 400D
Pipe Nebular, stack of 5, 70-300 @70, 400D
Cheers to all out there, now off to bed.
Tony and Anne-Louise
was a great time and i got to meet some good people and have a few good conversations. Good to put some faces to names.
Then there was the 6 volt incident.
Thanks for pointing it out Peter.
, seen here happily destroying the pot plant while waiting for his lunch to brought out , which was actually my lunch, he selected a chip off my plate and was quite happy with it. 
