I should come up and would have been good to meet other new scopeless peeps but i have to be up early so ill give this one a miss.
Looks like you guys will have a great nights viewing.. i have spotted 4 satelites in the past 5 minutes and two earlier when/as i went for a swim down the road. Far from an expert but the skies look dam good to me and i have gosford & woy woy,s lighting to contend with
In short, I had expected the conditions to be pretty iffy on account of the high temperatures, but remarkably the seeing was quite good for much of the night. I think the explanation is that temperatures stayed pretty stable, there was not the sudden temperature drop off that one expects, the diurnal range was quite small. At midnight, it was still about 29 degrees. I was keeping an eye on sally1jack's (Phil's) temperature gauge, and his mirror temperature and ambient temperature stayed within about 2 degrees of one another all night.
With the warm temperatures and gentle breezes which slid through from time to time, there was nil dew.
Observing was comfortably done in shorts and t-shirts. Very nice.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself last night, I had a bit of a natter with a few people, and then settled down to a wonderful night's observing with Phil and his beautiful SDM. Phil and I have now solved most of the world's problems, and in particular issues pertaining to relatives!!
We were joined from time to time by others, Joe brought his usual wit and eyepiece commentary, GTW the Owl downed some coldies with us and kept watch on the cosmos, Deeno joined us late, bouyant from recent cricketing feats, and Greg was his usual focused self, thoughtful about what detail could be seen compared with previous experiences of objects. I also chatted with the SCT crowd at points in the evening, and it was good to see Allan make a late appearance.
The astronomical highlight of the night for me was a galaxy cluster in Fornax. We had 10+ galaxies in the FOV at one point, and had lots of fun roving around that region, snaring more and more galaxies, as if they were moths swarming around the eyepiece.
Many other galaxies were visited. Along with some of the usual suspects, we looked at various galaxies in Dorado, and had a few multiple galaxy views. We caught a few brighter galaxies in Leo (albeit low in the sky still), and even checked out NGC 5128 and 4945.
We had a lovely view of the Ghost of Jupiter, it was interesting to hear the comments of others as they, at first, only saw a blob, but then with patience and occasion more-steady moments, were able to see the two rings of colour, and even a bit of structure.
We visited the varicose veins of the humunculous, and enjoyed various globs, especially the Horologium glob, M79, and of course 47 Tucanae and Omaga Centauri. M42 was nice in the 26 Nagler, we also enjoyed views of familiar OCs like the Jewel Box.
The most difficult object of the night was Hubbles Variable Nebula - I am not sure we had a positive ID to be honest. And of course the Horsehead - Phil wanted to try to see it, but it was not willing to reveal itself last night - unfortunately while the Pony Club is darker than my backyard, it is still not very dark compared with many sites I have visited over the years, and you really do need some contrast against a dark sky to see the Horsehead.
Anyway, thanks to everyone for your wonderful company, and for those that missed out, hope to see you next time.
And Phil - thanks buddy, I appreciate your efforts in bringing the scope and letting me effectively commandeer it. To have a night off from running the Mary Rose is a nice change, allowing me to be more social, so I appreciate it greatly.
Well it was a great night,Rod summed it up well.It was good to see the owl & other i hadn't seen for a while.
I was a bit tired & hot ot start with , but with a relaxed crowd & better than expected skies i had a very pleasant evening.
view of the night for me was the homuculuc with deeno's 7mm& the ghost of jupiter what a great target
Looking forward to cooler conditions & dark skies
phil
Thanks everyone for the usual good company.
Thanks Phil for the 18" views and Joe for the bino shoot-out.
Still deciding whether or not to thank Rod for the Televue 20% off sale info.
Had a great night, saturn at the end was most impressive.
My wedge didnt give me half as much grief as i thought it would.. even managed to get a few little happy snaps.
we totaled about 10 PCer's for the nite, and one mystery guest at the end
i must say the weather conditions surprised us all - it stayed clear for most of the nite - clouded over about 4am then proceded to partially clear again
Fantastic night saturn was well worth the wait and had some wonderful views through my scope. Bit hazy at times but definitely a great night minus the humidity.
What a pleasant night. Shorts, t-shirts and thongs were the order for the entire night and with the humidity a steady 40% for the majority of the evening, dew never became a issue.
The surprise was how good the sky was. Steady enough to break out the rarely used 5mm Radian on Saturn to reveal a crisp Cassini division during moments of real clarity. This in turn inspired a tour through Carina with the 5mm and a session splitting close doubles.
Thanks for the peek through the SDM Phil, nothing quite like a quality large aperture dob with the bells and whistles (sigh!).
Great to see you all and what’s with this growing epidemic of showing up minus telescope ?
If all viewing sessions were like this we wouldn't have much to complain about...........
Sorry I missed the night guys, was away at Coffs but will definitely get the next one. Sounds like a good one was had by all and the photos Andrew pretty shmick.
