Lostock:New moon in April

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by GTB_an_Owl

well Dave - we were literally blown away with the conditions at lostock this trip
BLOWN AWAY being the operative term
friday was cloudy - got a bit of a look in later in the evening - then the bloody hurricane hit

my scope decided to do some unattended Parra- observing - didn't negotiate the landing too well - but survived pretty much unscathed

Sat evening started out great - no cloud - seeing was ok for a while -
then the tornado hit
don't think anyone survived past midnite

i got wise and put the scope away this time before i retired but left the base out on the paddock - them nice fella's that stayed up a bit later stopped it all from blowing into maitland and bought in in out of the wind

fun weekend - great company - more later

geoff

wow i hope no major damage was suffered by anyone

[Rick Petrie]

Great weekend but I think the jet stream lowered itself to ground zero a few too many times during our stay. The big bad wolf huffed and puffed and nearly blew our house away. The house was literally creaking, rattling and groaning in a few of the gusts.(who was that snoring all night?)
Apart from the elements the weekend was a great success as we had some periods of very good seeing in the "lulls".
You could see Sally1 Phil drooling after looking through Greg's new SDM. Very nice scope too by the way Greg and thanks for the views. You've gotta be happy with it so far.
Deeno was the only soldier to brave the elements for the whole weekend on "Lostock Heights". Has to be one of the ten best drift aligners I know of.
Cheers to Arthur for his foresight in arranging this get together and I'm sure it may become a regular type event. Was nice to meet you both Ryan and Rebecca and I hope you enjoyed it.
Thanks to all for the good company again.

[Inmykombi (Geoff)]

Hey Rick, I'll swap you the pair of Tasco 10 x 50 Binos in my car for a ladder thats at your place OK.........

Well I had a great time there despite the poor seeing conditions and the "Hurricanes and Cyclones".
The wind was blowing the hardest I have seen for a while mainly after midnight.
We managed to get some observing under nice dark skies so Icant really complain at all.The seeing was terrible for planets and pinpoint stars, but the Nebs and clusters and doubles looked OK.
The quantity of Doubles I " discovered " was later thought to be directly proportional to the amount of Bundy Rum I consumed on Friday night.
The Milky way on Saturday night was stretched right across the sky....simply beautiful.
Meteors a plenty too, with me seeing about 20 in an hour and a half on Friday night.

And that scope of Gregs was amazing. I like the filter flip mechanism too.
Very nice indeed.
Thx to Jacob for the look thru ther 16 incher too. WOW...
Great to see Phil and Ryan and Rebecca too. Ryan and rebecca's scope gave some very sharp star cluster views too.

Deenos tarp became 4 seperate tarps after the weekend too, I saw him chasing one part up the hill early Sunday morning....

Great company, some dark observing and a few laughs... Ill be back...

A special Thx to Arthur for organising the keys and the weekend. Hip Hip Hooray... Oh and thx for the Hotdogs Friday night as well Arthur.


Photos to come..

Geoffro.

[Deeno]

What Bizarre weather!

Both nights showed signs of promise but, delivered very little in the way of conditions even remotely conducive for good observing.

Friday night started calm and clear with some very poor seeing. Then the temperature rose almost 10 degrees in fifteen minutes, the humidity halved closely followed by a nor-wester that had me chasing the dust cap of the 10" across the paddock....in the dark...with a red light torch.

Saturday showed even more promise until the nor-wester kicked in again with as much venom as the previous evening.
Fortunately the only victim was my poor old tarp. It copped a battering on Friday night. Saturday night has left it beyond repair.

Still managed to make friends with my new HEQ-5, which was the primary goal for the weekend. Looked like I had coaxed a reasonable polar alignment in the end. It should be a lot easier next time without the hurricane.

Thanks for making the trek to 'WindyLostockHeights' and the lesson on the finer points on collimating a Newtonian Rick. You have now made my list of "Top Ten Collimators in Australia". Perhaps the World.........maybe even the known universe......

Anyway, Lostock is a beautiful location and really enjoyed a laugh with some terrific company. I still had 'just' the best time.

Thanks Arthur
Hopefully we can do this on a regular basis?

Cheers
Deeno

[GTB_an_Owl (Geoff)]

love the ghosting effect Deeno

how did you do that ?

geoff

[Deeno]

Originally Posted by GTB_an_Owl

love the ghosting effect Deeno

how did you do that ?

geoff

They are a HDR image (tone mapping to be more accurate) made from nine separate bracketed exposures and blended together.

[Rhino1980 (Ryan)]

Did you use Photomatix for that? Looks great.

[gb_astro]

My first time at Lostock, beautiful scenery on the drive up there
in the late afternoon and the darkest site I have been to for some time.

Really enjoyed the company and the Saturday night sky was pretty impressive to the naked eye with the Milky Way dark lanes very obvious.

Thanks for the comments on the SDM, it's working out well.

And Rick, thanks for the Argo tutorial.

Greg.

[Arthur Alchin (Arthur Alchin)]

Glad everyone had a great weekend (except for the wind and initial cloud).

I will have to reclimb the learning curve (curse) for the LXD75 because it got me so frustrated i was about to scream (the higher velosity wind blocked the noise coming out of my). Also there were times over the weekend when i was glad i was upwind on some occasions.

Thankyou all that came, it made a great weekend.

It is interesting when you think that Jacobs reflector is mounted on a Turret rather than a base, maybe rotational locks should be installed to stop it turning into a wind turbine (hehehehe)

[iceman (Mike)]

Great pics and reports. Wish I could've been there. It was certainly very blowy at home too!

Does the rest of the site look the same? I bet the water hole was cool!

[GTB_an_Owl (Geoff)]

don't know about the water hole being "cool" Mike - but it was sure "full"

geoff

[GTB_an_Owl (Geoff)]

upwind you say Arthur !

i wasn't that good was i ?

geoff

[Deeno]

Originally Posted by Rhino1980

Did you use Photomatix for that? Looks great.

Yup. Sure was.

Sounds like you guys enjoyed yourselves.
I hear you have some interesting plans for your next purchase?

[Rhino1980 (Ryan)]

Hey Deeno, an EQ6 PRO and a Skywatcher 10 inch Newtonian are the next goodies we plan on purchasing. After looking through a 10 inch aperture at Lostock the deal was sealed! And yeah we had a blast!

[RB (Andrew)]

I wish I could have come up too, but glad you guys had a good time, even though the weather was so vicious at times.

Deeno nice pics as usual mate, very nicely done, they have a natural colour and look to them even though they are HDR, well done mate.

[GTB_an_Owl (Geoff)]

some photo's

[jakob]

Thanks for a geat weekend in good company!

At least the Cobwebs were cleared out of the scope!

Here are some snaps.

( Thanks for the push to get me on the way.....)

[norm]

Sounds like you had a good time fellas - relaxed atmosphere and camaraderie

If there is another session b4 Lostock 09 I'd be interested!

[Inmykombi (Geoff)]

Finally got the photos organised.

Thx for a great weekend everyone.
Arthur really can play that Acordian as well.
He played some lovely Irish music which was great.