How far have you travelled to observe?

[Striker (Tony)]

wow this thread was resurrected after being dormant for 12 months.....lol

I will travell interstate no problem.

[h0ughy (David)]

Lets see now

I occasionally grace the guys at Kulnura with my presence, Yes I know guys its rare, that’s about a 1.5 hour drive for me one way.

Then there is SPSP, its about a 4 hour trip one way, see interesting people and avoid the cranky ones

Then there is the Queensland Astrofest, now this is a 16 hour trip one way. But well worth it, you can talk to those guys, they are gods up there !!

And of course Lostock, no doubt once we visit there in January it will become a regular occurrence (probably in a cooler part of the year later on) its about 2 hours away from me.

The most travelling I have done for an event was the total lunar eclipse in 1999 or 2000, can't remember now suffering old timers!! I had set up and was ready for the event at the oblisk in Newcastle, then the cloud and rain set in on the coast. So quickly packed up and Alan Meehan and myself left there and travelled up the hunter valley until we were free from cloud totally and we had 15 minutes to set the scopes and photography gear up to start observing the first touch of the earths shadow. We had travelled about 74 km and were 12km shy of Singleton. We pulled off the highway into some lane and drove down it for 100m then just set up on the road! It was an awesome night as we also saw a green aurora to the south, plenty of meteors and a orange red moon. Just awesome!

Other than that no where special, just at home !

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by ballaratdragons

In other words, I don't have to travel anywhere.

@ken

[Robert_T]

i open the french doors and I muscle the scope and LXD75 out in two pieces about two metres onto the courtyard pavers... sometimes if I'm adventurous I move about 5metres round the house to increase my northern horizon... once I even went out into the backyard - the joys and advantages of being a single minded planetary nut

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by Striker

wow this thread was resurrected after being dormant for 12 months.....lol

I will travell interstate no problem.

Well considering the fact I didn't join up until april last year, this post is "new" for me Tony

you can Blame Ed in texas

[asimov (John)]

I keep my scopes in a granny flat that's been coverted from a shed which is located 1/2 dozen steps away from my back door. I don't travel anywhere to view.

[Sausageman (Mike Boggan)]

Now, let me see.
Would the South Coast of Ireland count, with only Bino's.?
I was there in November last year.
I don't know how many K's it was, but it took 21 hours flying, another 7 driving and 3 on the ferry.
The Moon was upside down, And the Big Dipper was a great sight.

Do I win...LOL

Mike

[westsky]

well lets see, my longest astronomy trip.
Brisbane to Cairns, I setup the C8 to watch a partial solor eclispe at Innisfail.
Then two nights later I used the C8 at Coober Pedy, within 50k's of it anyway.
Then onto Nullabor or just past it by about 100k,
then onto Perth (didn't get the scope out in Perth)
back to Nullabor used the C8 again.then used the scope again near Mildura
then back home to Brisbane, all up a 12 or 13 day round trip.

David.

[Glenn Dawes]

Hi all,

One of the things I like about this forum is the interesting topics you come up with! What a chance to take a 5 min trip down memory lane!

Well I normally will go up the Blue Mountains (about an hour drive from my home in Sydney) with the occasional trip to Ilford (which unfortunately in recent years seems to have slipped to just the SPSP).

In 1981 I flew to Hobart to see an annular eclipse of the Sun and myself and my 2 friends (also from Sydney) were the only ones to see it (the locals warned us against going up Mt Wellington (too cold and exposed) but being foolish interstaters we went anyway and observed the whole event just above the clouds (the photos look like we were in Antartica).

When SN1987a went off in the LMC I headed up the Blue Mountains with some friends but ended up having to outrun the clouds. Around midnight we pulled into the driveway of a good friend who happened to work and live on Siding Spring Mountain at the time. Boy, was he surprised to see us! The sky was clear and we observed the supernova almost in the 'shadow' of the AAT.

In 1991 I went to Hawaii to see an eclipse of the Sun (about 7 mins of totality - it doesn't get much better than that). We were warned against remaining on the coastline so we went inland and got clouded out about 1 min from totality! We found out later the staff at our motel, on the coast, saw the whole thing from the roof!

I have flown twice to Perth to catch the Leonids! The first time turned out to be clear but not at the time of peak - but we saw probably about 20 of the nicest fireballs in my life (all on the same night - so no complaints). The other trip well.... it never stopped raining!

In 1997 I flew to the USA to see Comet Hale Bopp at its peak (my wife still thinks it was our Honeymoon!). Absolutely fantastic weather and got some nice shots with the dishes of the VLA in the foreground!

The trip to Woomera for the Eclipse was fantastic. There's been very few times I have got up in the morning and just knew it wasn't going to cloud up but this was one of those times.

And finally my most unusual trip (if you can call, looking over someone's shoulder the whole night and looking at a computer monitor, observing) was the evening I spent flying on NASA's Kuiper Airbourne Observatory back in 1983. This now decommissioned 2.2m telescope was mounted in a C131 jet aircraft. It was optimised to observe in the infrared and by flying around 40,000 ft + got them above most of the water in the atmosphere that absorbs the IR. The plane's track that night took us up over mid Queensland, across to around the NT / WA border, down south of the Bite, across to around Hobart and back to Richmond Airforce Base (near Sydney). Don't ask me how Ken Wallace and I got onto this lerk - that's another story and this post has already become to long (and self-indulgent - forgive me).

Regards

Glenn D

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Originally Posted by Mike Boggan

Would the South Coast of Ireland count, with only Bino's.?
I was there in November last year.

Mike, did you observe whilst on a trip or go on a trip to observe?

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by Glenn Dawes

Hi all,

One of the things I like about this forum is the interesting topics you come up with! What a chance to take a 5 min trip down memory lane!................Regards

Glenn D

Glenn, I enjoyed reading this , what wonderful tales to tell on cloudy nights! thanks for sharing

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

Well I once travelled to Southern Florida to do some observing

Actually it was just to see how astronomically deprived the Northern hemisphere folk are

[Twokids]

Since I have two small children I'm stuck with my front or back yard. The kids know that if they wake up in the night and can't find me, they can look out the windows and see me.

Luckily I live in a small town.I'm 60km or so away from the city so have relatively dark skies (there's a glow to the north ).

Is there a way to judge how dark my skies are? I can see the LMC and SMC easily enough (funny how I never noticed them before getting into astronomy, I must have just assumed they were clouds ).

[RAJAH235]

I only travel 10 klm. Just south of the 'gong. Horizon ain't much chop but it's fairly dark + it's got tables/benches etc & a 'john'.
You got your choice of bitumen carpark or grass paddock to set-up on/in.

Jodie, hi. This might help. > http://uk.geocities.com/dpeach_78/pickering.htm
L.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

When I travel to observe, it's for the social aspect mainly.
It's nice to talk to people who understand.

You're right there Jodie about the clouds. I like pointing them out to people and telling them what they are.

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

LMC and SMC are easily visible even on the outskirts of Metropolitan Melbourne. One good test for sky darkness is: how many stars can you see in the Cross (Crux) with the naked eye? Five is enough for some good deep sky observing including some galaxies with my 8". More than five is getting pretty dark, great for galaxy hunting and observing subtle detail you would not see otherwise.

[gaa_ian (Ian)]

Well .. I regularly travel about 15km to our dark sky site in Gove.
I have on a few occasions travelled (about 2,500km) from Gove (NT) to observe with the Brisbane & the Sunshine coast IIS'ers
Actually, I travelled down there for work technically, but the observing was the best bit !

[Twokids]

Just to clarify, do you mean of the crux, or within the boundaries of the crux? There are a lot of whispy clouds tonight so I am looking through the clouds, but I can easily see the four main stars, and a few inside.

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

I mean the latter, the four main stars plus anything within. The fifth is in the flag, but most Oz citizens have probably never seen it. It is not visible from Melbourne suburbs within 15-20 km of the CBD. More stars are only visible from dark (mag 5.5+) skies.

[Twokids]

Yay for me then . Even through the thin clouds and a full moon, I can easily see six stars. After I've been out there for a few minutes I can see a few more (only barely though). I'll have to have a look under better conditions .