Dark sky weekend coming up!

[iceman (Mike)]

This weekend I'm going to my first Star Party! It's a pretty small affair, probably about 20 people, most from the amateur club i've just joined, NSAS (north sydney).
They usually have their observation nights at North Turramurra golf course, but this time they're having a special dark sky night out Maitland way.

There'll be a mix of 8"-12", mostly SCT's I'd imagine.. lx200's etc. Some pretty good (and expensive) gear.

I'm looking forward to learning heaps off these experienced guys and getting a look through their scopes..

Hopefully someone will be able to help show me how to collimate my scope, so I can do it by myself next time.. I'm just unsure where to start with it, I don't have a laser collimater or eyepiece etc..

Once i'm shown once, i'm sure i'll be more confident from then on

I hope the weather stays clear, i'll take some notes and write up a report when I get back!

Some guys are going up Friday and staying friday and saturday night.. i'll just head up Saturday arvo and come hope later that night.. My wife won't be too pleased if I leave her with 3 kids for a whole weekend while i'm off galivanting around the place

[Soldant]

Lucky you, out where I am it decides to stay clear all day before cloud (worth nothing, damn we need rain) decides to roll on again

[Starkler (Geoff)]

A tip.

DONT buy a laser collimator (miscollimater), buy a cheshire type and you wont go wrong. You'll need to centre spot your primary mirror first though.

Enjoy the dark skies !

[iceman (Mike)]

My mirror is already centre-spotted. Bintel did that as part of the package..

They took it out of the boxes (when it came from GSO), thoroughly check it, centre-spot the mirror, collimate the scope, and then put it back in the box. I guess that's what you're paying extra for - the service and reputation.

Although I got a good deal from them and didn't pay any more than I would have from Andrews. Check the other thread in the equip forum

The forecast for saturday is "sunny with clouds", so who knows what that means.. as long as it's not blanket cloud coverign the whole sky, i'm sure I can put up with a few intermittent clouds.

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Heres a useful link to check when planning an astro-outing.

http://www.weatherzone.com.au/curren....jsp?state=NSW

Good luck.

[Enigma (Kim)]

hey Iceman

Glad you spammed in GA, I've always been interested in astronomy although I dont know much about it techinically!

One of the best experiences was being out in the middle of OZ .. Im talking Ayers Rock here, and seeing the Moon absolutly up close as well as Mercury>> *I THINK*

We have an amazing view of the night sky from our street at night, just wish I had a telescope and/or camera to take some pics

I wondering if you would have any recommendations as far as cameras go? (digital stills im talking about)

Im into photography but havn't had a digital camera before..

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi Enigma.

It depends what you want to achieve, as far as digital stills go.

Do you want to use it for night-time/astro photography, or just day/terrestrial use?

There's a huge range of digitals now, and it just depends how much you want to spend, in the end.

You can get a consumer-level digicam with a few manual functions for $500 or less. That'll probably get you around 3-4 megapixels, around 3-4x optical zoom.

From $500-$1000, you can get the next level up, 5 megapixels and above, some with 3x and some with 10x optical zoom, most will have almost full manual control.

For up to $2000, you're talking digital SLR's, the cream of the crop for the amateur. Not cheap, but clearly the best cameras out there at the moment.

Just make sure you look for:
- how many megapixels
- how much optical zoom (don't even worry about digital zoom, you'll never use it imo)
- what type of memory it uses (some memory is more expensive than others)
- how much memory it comes with
- what type of lenses/adapters you can get with it
- what type of manual functions/overrides it has

I hope that helps!

[iceman (Mike)]

Went to the dark sky weekend on saturday night, but of course the weather worked against us

I've written the observing report in the "Observing Logs" section, if you want, go take a read!

[Soldant]

tomorrow I'm going out to the middle of nowhere, with usually very dark skies and mostly unobstructed vision (except for some grain silos).

And the moon is out.

Daaaaaamnit!!!!!

[iceman (Mike)]

The moon is setting at about 2am, just plan for a late one

[Soldant]

Can't stay up there that long I'm mostly going up for the day (we own a block of land out in Cliffton, little town in the middle of nowhere) to mow the grass and help finish off a shed, but I need to be back tomorrow moring for a bbq .