Jupiter Planetary Camp June 2007 - wartookrise

[iceman (Mike)]

10 days is still plenty of time to get some ripper images.

All the best with it.

[John K]

Good to see that this is comming up.

I'll be a doing a day trip from Melbourne to catch up with everyone on the weekend of the 2nd (either Friday everning or Saturday) based on the weather forecast, so hope to see everyone there.

John.

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

I wouldn't mind dropping over one afternoon for the old 'catch up' too. It's only about 2.5 hours from here I think. Can't afford to stay, but would be great to see you guys again, even if only for a couple of hours in the afternoon.

[davidpretorius]

that would be awesome ken!

[rumples riot]

This camp starts in less than a week now.

If you want to find out the route for travel, go to google maps and in the search bar type in your location and then write "to Wartook Rise". This will give you a comprehensive route to the camp.

Please let me know if you are coming, for those that have not confirmed yet.

Looking forward to catching up in one week's time.

[rumples riot]

The final list seems set, anyone else who is interested should come along, it will be heaps of fun.

Anthony Wesley (Bird)
Dave Pretorius (Tassie Tiger)
Paul Haese (Rumples Riot) + Cate
Mick Pinner (not sure of duration)
Maurice Valimberti (3-4 days tentatively)
Robert King (Rez) (Couple of nighs)
JOhn K from Melbourne (couple of nights)
Ken from Snake Valley (1 night I think)

[LX200]

G'day Guys
I'll swing over Sat morning and catch up
as I'm just over the hill on the northern side in Pomonal

Looks to be a pretty wet'n wild w/e in store


Friday Local morning fog. A cold and partly cloudy day with scattered showers extending from the west late afternoon and evening. Generally light wind tending northerly.

Saturday Scattered showers. A cold and partly cloudy day.

Sunday Scattered showers, mainly in the south. Cold.

Monday Isolated showers in the south. Cold.

[rumples riot]

Well I am finally back.

The camp was by and large an overwhelming success. We had some trepidations but everything was overcome in the end.

Friday while travelling to Wartook my girlfriend Cate had her car slammed into by some stupid girl at 100km per hour and this delayed our arrival to the lodge. After sorting all this out we continued on our way and tried to make Cate comfortable as possible. She was quite sore from the collision.

Once we arrived we found that Anthony was already there and settling in nicely. It was cloudy and raining so I got out everything we needed for the night and left the rest in the truck. No imaging was done on Friday however, we did drink some mighty nice reds from the Barossa.

Saturday, Cate and I went out exploring and we went to Hollow mountain to see the cave paintings in the northern Grampians. Dave arrived with his two great girls and later in the afternoon John K from Melbourne and Rob (Grampian Stars) turned up. Rob did not stay long but it was nice to catch up briefly. John stayed on for the night and as it turned out the seeing was nearly the best we had all week. John is a great bloke and with many interesting hobbies, conversation was great at the dinner table. Cate really liked Johns shoes too. Seems I am about to go shoe shopping. Both John and I were up until the wee hours and I really enjoyed his company.

Sunday John went home and Cate and I went exploring. That night we had average seeing but I did manage to get an image of the GRS transit.

Monday I think Anthony and Dave got stuck into making a new scope for Dave. Anthony had brought along his old 10 inch scope. Not much imaging done that night due to cloud and some rain. We went to the Royal Hotel at Dunkeld at the southern tip of the Grampians. We visited Silverband falls on the way home.

Tuesday Cate and I went to Bee Hive Falls (which was pretty funny). It was a really hard walk but great when we got there. The falls are superb at this time of the year. Later we went to Wartook Lake and then all hell broke loose. I started coming down with food poisoning. Later that night as I was shivering and thinking that I was going to die, the boys got several runs of really nice data. Dave got his best data for a long time and vindicated the notion that his images for this year were ruined by his old mirror. Anthony got a real nice blue channel too. Meanwhile I was hundled on the lounge. I finally passed out at around 1am and then awoke at 3am. I then went to bed after sweating out the bug. I was a little ginger the next morning, but I had survived.

Wednesday I took Cate into town and put her on the bus for Adelaide. She made it home fine. Once again we were plagued by cloud, so no imaging once again.

Thursday, we learned how to disable vista totally. Anthony and I installed the drivers for his dragonfly 2 camera and discovered each time we plugged in a fire wire camera the system would shut down. I looked at Anthony in that special way, Dave took off to see what the kids were up to. We backed everything up except my emails (insert doh smilie) and then proceeded to reinstall vista. After several hours we had the machine and camera working again, with Registax 4 reinstalled. We now know that some things will completely kill vista. We also found out that Registax 4 does not like video from dragonfly 2. It splits the image in half and recombines with the outside edges touching each other. Totally bizzare.

Friday we met Maurice Valimberti. Another nice chap. He brought a TOA 130 on an EQ6 mount. He took some mighty fine DSO images before the seeing went beserk. Earlier we had looked at some DSO targets with the SDM. The stars were pinpoint and tack sharp as per normal. Then the seeing got so bad with the wind that stars were now blobs. I had never seen this in the SDM before and we discussed this for some time. So no images were gained.

Saturday Dave, Jessi and Amy left for home. Us guys went to Halls gap and had a meal thanks to Maurice. We talked about the night ahead and the prospect of some nice seeing. After sunset we started getting ready again. The seeing was pretty nice at first and this was great because we checked out the double transit of Io and Ganymede (not sure as I did not have Jupiter 2 anymore) with the GRS. The seeing allowed us to see both moons and their shadows. My scope had not cooled enough at that time. Anthony did get some data. I later got some data when it was almost over and Ganymede's shadow had left face. For me this was a great thrill as I have waited two years to see another double transit. The seeing later degraded but we got some DSO views in with the owners of the property.

Sunday Maurice went home. Anthony and I then spent some time talking about the future of the camp idea and can now say that the Camp will be organised next year by Anthony. The year after Dave will most likely organise the camp. It will be held on the north coast of NSW next year. We are hoping to attract an international flavour for the next camp. We feel that since there are astrocamps all the time that really specialise in DSO interest there ought to be one for planetary interests. We figue we have 10 years to find a really good site for the 2018 triple conjunction of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn being directly overhead. By that time we hope to have 30 or so planetary imagers attending the event.

Today I drove home and thought about the camp a lot on the way home. Overall it was very successful. Meaning we got some data, we got to talk to each other for extended periods of time about various issues regarding planetary imaging and about personal stuff. We also had a lot of laughs. Amy's frown and cross eyes trick still makes me laugh. There were lots of funny moments over the entire period. Both Jessie and Amy were great kids, really good manners and very good. They seemed to love the place and I think they had a good holiday.

I know I did.

[Dennis]

A very interesting, thoughtful and nicely written report. So sorry to hear about the awful crash involving Cate's car. Thank goodness she wasn't seriously hurt and I hope she makes a swift and complete recovery.

Sounds like you all had a great time, apart from the food poisoning - who was cooking that night?

Cheers

Dennis

[rumples riot]

Cannot remember who cooked that night Dennis. Cate is fine, she was only sore for a few days, all is well now.

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Hi Paul, thanks for the phone call mate

Sorry I couldn't oblige. Turned out to be a great sky that night too.

Great report