IISAC2014 - 24th to 27th April 2014

[iceman (Mike)]

For anyone coming up on Saturday, just be aware of the music festival in Maitland. Likely extra traffic and pedestrians.

[absolut (Rob)]

Hey Mike,

Got a preference for fingerless or regular?

Just packing my stuff now, I'll arrive mid arvo (best guess).

Clear skies!

[iceman (Mike)]

Checking in at the beginning of day 2!

Last night was fabulous. Wispy cloud cleared after sunset and we had perfect viewing until after midnight. From around 3am the storms started, and this morning we had the most ferocious storm I've ever seen been in up here.

Incredible amount of wind, rain and thunder that echoed and rolled through the valleys. Quite an experience.

Cleared up now though, and the forecast is looking pretty good for tonight too!

Hope to see more of you soon!

Here's a frame from last night - 90s on the polarie, 5DMk2 and Samyang 14mm.

[iceman (Mike)]

We had another storm this arvo, but it's cleared nicely and it's looking beautiful for tonight.

Forecast has improved for tomorrow too! W00!

[Bolt (Zackary)]

Wish I could be there! Hopefully next year I can make it down.

[iceman (Mike)]

Another perfect night!

Clear all night until about 2am. Very dewey after the storm that went through in the afternoon, but it was beautiful.

Forecast not as good for tonight but hey, they've been wrong before!

[osteoblast (Mark)]

Thanks Mike for organising a great star party. I had 2 great nights there with clear skies for much of both. The biblical storm late on the first night was also something I'll not forget. I've always found starparties friendly but this one was especially so, thanks in particular to all the people at the far end of the camping people.
I've included a couple of attachments of images which qualify as nightscapes. This was my first opportunity to have a go. These were taken before the nightscape talk and I must admit my focus was almost exclusively on the sky and I'll need to think more about the foreground content in future.

[Steffen]

Another great astro camp, thanks Mike and everybody who helped for making it happen!

My son Alex finally fulfilled his ambition to capture a time lapse video of the Milky Way. There are of course a number of issues that will jump out at the discerning viewer, but I think it's a great first effort and he's chuffed. It's here (about 20MB).

I quickly PP'ed it and threw it together in Aperture, so most of what's wrong with it is probably my fault. Also, next time we won't be using ISO12800, and probably use a wider lens, too.

Cheers
Steffen.

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by Steffen

Another great astro camp, thanks Mike and everybody who helped for making it happen!

My son Alex finally fulfilled his ambition to capture a time lapse video of the Milky Way. There are of course a number of issues that will jump out at the discerning viewer, but I think it's a great first effort and he's chuffed. It's here (about 20MB).

I quickly PP'ed it and threw it together in Aperture, so most of what's wrong with it is probably my fault. Also, next time we won't be using ISO12800, and probably use a wider lens, too.

Cheers
Steffen.

pretty cool result

[TheRon]

Hi everyone,
My name is Cindy, I attended the party on Thursday and Friday nights with my friend Hayley. This was our first star party experience and we both really enjoyed it. We just wanted to say thanks again to Adrian, Ted and Duncan, who rescued our evening while we were hunting around like twits for the night sky tour on Thursday. We appreciate you guys sharing your equipment and knowledge with us. Hopefully we will attend some more events and not be driven away so easily by a little bit of rain

[AG Hybrid (Adrian)]

Originally Posted by TheRon

Hi everyone,
My name is Cindy, I attended the party on Thursday and Friday nights with my friend Hayley. This was our first star party experience and we both really enjoyed it. We just wanted to say thanks again to Adrian, Ted and Duncan, who rescued our evening while we were hunting around like twits for the night sky tour on Thursday. We appreciate you guys sharing your equipment and knowledge with us. Hopefully we will attend some more events and not be driven away so easily by a little bit of rain

G day Cindy. Glad to see you decided to post after all . It was great to meet you and it was a pleasure showing the sights. Don't be a stranger .


Edit: Also as a side note. I would like to thank Mike for organizing this event and all in all it was a great success.

[iceman (Mike)]

Time to wrap up another IISAC event!

Where to start... Arriving on Thursday in nice warm weather meant a swim was on the agenda. The water was freezing but it was refreshing all the same. Al and I found some inner tubes down by the creek, so we attached our respective GoPro's to them and sent them down the rapids The footage looks great - it'll make an appearance in my memories of IISAC2014 timelapse

After sunset Thursday, the high clouds burnt off and we had beautiful clear skies until about 1-2am. It was a perfect night - wind kept the dew away and it was just fantastic.

The storm that came on Friday morning, between 3am-6am and then again at 7am, was WICKED! Biggest storm I've seen there. Incredible lightening and thunder, and then wind and sideways rain.

It stormed again on Friday afternoon at around 3pm, but after that the sky cleared and we had beautiful clear skies again until about 1am. However it was very dewey which caught a lot of people off guard.

Saturday was a nice busy day with talks and workshops, the sausage sizzle (which I think went down well), the door prize and group photo. Unfortunately the clouds didn't play nice and it remained cloudy all night, but 2 out of 3 ain't bad! That's a success in my books

Thanks as always to those who help me make IISAC happen.
First and foremost to Al Sheehan and Lyn. They put themselves out SO much on Thursday, helping setup, and then again on Saturday - buttering bread, cutting onions, cooking and helping run the sausage sizzle, and then again with packup on Sunday. I couldn't have done it without you! Thanks again.

Thanks to the Alex Massey show - for giving 2 workshops and his unveiling of Gondwana Telescopes (which look great!).

Thanks to Bintel, Wildcard and Knightware for providing door prizes - without their generosity there would be no door prize at IISAC, so please show them your appreciation too!

Thanks to Mark Suchting for putting on a fabulous laser light show in the marquee on Saturday night. It was a great cloudy night activity - really mesmerising and everyone who attended enjoyed it immensely.

Thanks to everyone who got ready and left early on Sunday morning so I could get home to my family and celebrate my Son's birthday. I think the cloudy night on Saturday helped as quite a few left or packed up on Saturday night Also thanks to everyone for cleaning up after themselves - there was very very little to pick up on my final walk of the field. Well done!

Personally, I had a productive Thursday and Friday nights with some nightscape photography. Lots of new images and timelapse material that'll keep me busy for the next few months with processing. I was able to capture some shots I've had ideas for for so long.

Every IISAC ends with the adrenalin draining out of my system and I just feel spent.. tired. But I always look back with great memories.

We ended up with about 95 attendees over the 3 days. Not too bad, but IISAC is expensive to put on - hiring the marquee is the single biggest expense, not to mention insurance, the AV gear, hiring of the houses and camp itself, etc. I was hoping we'd end up with more attendees with the holidays, but I think Easter and Anzac day so close probably meant families and others had their own holidays and the star party wasn't on their list.
I covered costs - so no worries there, but some years it runs close.

Will look at the timing for next time. But also for those that came and had a good time, make sure you tell your friends (loudly) about it! Post your reports and pics! Make sure you recommend they come too

If you attended IISAC2014, please provide feedback for next time by filling in our short survey: http://iisac2014.questionpro.com

Group Shots:
- 1200px version
- Full res jpeg version

[zardos123 (Brad)]

here are a couple from this year, all unguided and only rough processing but gives the idea of how good the sky ended up
regards brad

[MrB (Simon)]

Originally Posted by iceman

The storm that came on Friday morning, between 3am-6am and then again at 7am, was WICKED! Biggest storm I've seen there. Incredible lightening and thunder, and then wind and sideways rain.

It stormed again on Friday afternoon at around 3pm

Thanks for the the report for those of us unable to attend. Would love to fly/drive over one year.

You guys got some close lightning strikes!
(The large rings indicate strike locating accuracy)

Edit: Ooo, my 3k post!

[Rod771 (Rod)]

Two out of three is a huge success in terms of clear nights at a star party, with particular reference to Friday evening. I still don't know where all the clouds went but I'm not losing any sleep over it.

I should have walked around on Thursday to get some pictures of all the awesome telescopes but I left it until Saturday when most scopes were still covered or packed up. Anyway, I managed to get some shots.

Huge thanks to Mike for organizing the camp, I had a great time, it was nice catching up with people I first met last year and meeting new people. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again next year.

Cheers

Rod

[MortonH]

Gutted I couldn't make it. I'd have enjoyed that storm!

[sheeny (Al)]

Thanks for posting the lightning strike map, Simon. I reckoned at least 3 strikes were about 3kms away (when I was counting) - perhaps those 3 in the tight group near the dam.

Al.

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Mike,

Thank you for organising such a great event,

When I got there late Friday arvo, the sky was crystal clear, and unless you told me, I would never have suspected a huge storm had ripped through earlier on in the day.

I enjoyed myself. Sketched a bit, talked a lot, and spent time with great company.

I did have a curious close encounter with the local wildlife too. On Sunday morning around 4am I was awoken by some really loud and insistent scratching what I thought was just to the side of my car. At first I thought some critter was going through my stuff. Then I realised it was an echidna that was poking around UNDER my car, and its quills were scratching around the underside of my car!

I've posted the two sketches I did Friday night in the sketching sticky. You'll be able to see them through this link as I didn't want to double up on posts:

IISAC '14 Wide Field Sketches

Thanks again Mike.

Mental.

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Was my first time and had a great time, so many thanks to Mike for organising.

Two decent nights out of three isn't bad going, and the storm was a whole new experience Got some good observing in of some new objects, and some favourites, after being shown how to collimate my scope (thanks to Star Catcher!), got some photons down the new Skylight (wow!) and took my first wide field dark sky pics (thanks to AstroJason for the crash course!)

[AstroDiggle (Donn)]

Many thanks to Mike and all his assistants for a great weekend adventure. Storms, torrential rain and heavy dew....all part of nature, didn't detract one bit from the experience. Two great viewing nights with friendly assistance and fun, made this newbie feel well at home. Thanks to Richard, Dave, Mark and the Lockies. It fired more enthusiasm to do better and see more. My wife and I had a great time and met many new friends. Looking forward to our next adventure. Ive posted a couple of shots from Saturday morning...amazing early light, and the moon and venus on show. My star shots are still a work in progress, but threw one in just the same. Thanks again to everyone for a terrific weekend.