Best westerly view south of Canberra for broadcast?

[GOTO (Geoff)]

Hi all,

I am trying to find a location to the south of Canberra that has a clear westerly view for the eclipse on Saturday morning. I am also rather keen for a power supply as I will try to broadcast the eclipse for an observatory in Sydney

If anyone has any suggestions please let me know as my first choice at Canowindra is not looking too good about 60 hours out from the event.

Cheers and thanks
Geoff

[Wavytone]

Broadcasting ? How ?

If you need 240VAC I’d suggest use a car battery plus an inverter.

Mains power isn’t available at remote locations.

[GOTO (Geoff)]

I use OBS Studio software to send images to a Facebook page. I have quite a few batteries for the telescope, DSLR, laptop and dew heaters but I'd rather have 240V if possible as the cold will be a killer. It doesn't have to be remote either, just clear to the west.
Cheers
Geoff

[Wavytone]

Geoff 240VAC mains power is not accessible outside a private property for safety reasons - and councils won't accept the risk of it being accessible unsupervised in public places.

That means you have to find either a hotel, or a weekender you can rent, with a view west and take a very long flex.

Possibly you might talk a service station someplace on the highway near Jindabyne into it, but I doubt there is one with the view, and rocking up at 3am they'll probably think you're a nutter.

However I can't help feeling you'd do best to take a big battery and make sure its nice and warmed - keep it indoors starting NOW - by the time you set up. Put it in an esky, perhaps a blanket over the top and keep the lid on so it doesn't get COLD. Batteries dissipate a bit of heat while being discharged and this should be enough to keep it warm.

[GOTO (Geoff)]

Thanks for the tips
Cheers
Geoff

[Mav]

If going remote and not going to interfer with anyone else then hire a generator from Kennards or the like, that will give you the power you need just keep the fuel up to it but a tank will probably give you enough operating time.

[torana68 (Roger)]

Welcome here but I think clear range might block the view?

[Kunama]

If you're going to be close to Canberra I can loan you a generator....

[GOTO (Geoff)]

Gosh thank you all for the advice and offer of a generator. I have batteried up and really only need to last a few hours. We aren't sure where we will go yet trying to avoid the cloud. If anyone is interested, and I can make it all work in the cold, check out our feed on Sydney Observatory's Facebook page.
Cheers and thanks again
Geoff

[Wavytone]

What's the plan cloud-wise ? Set off at midnight and keep going west till you're out of it ?

And if its clear in Sydney or the Blue Mountains ?

[GOTO (Geoff)]

I plan to head off this afternoon with one eye on the road and the other on Skippy Sky but yes I'd rather stay in Sydney as I have a great location here.

[Kunama]

the Yr site's cloud predictions are still the best I have seen.... Good Luck...

I will be setting up at Mount Stromlo in the wee hours for some binocular viewing of the moon....

[LewisM]

Originally Posted by Kunama

in the wee hours ....

The Wee Hours...you old-timers and your bladders. Just take a porta-potty .

I have set my alarm for 0445..plenty of time to go back to sleep when the cloud doesn't cooperate.

[GOTO (Geoff)]

Hi all,
I hope you all enjoyed the eclipse. Our little team made it to Canberra and found the gates open to the Aboretum, wow it was the best spot so we, and quite a few others set up. I imaged Mars at first just to check all but the cold hurt a lot at -2C.
A poor security guard tried to make us leave at 3:30am but I refused and eventually his boss permitted us to stay
The view was great and I had 16,000 views via our Facebook feed with 1,000 likes. The only downside was that using EOS live view limited the longest exposure to 1/30sec and I had very limited chance to take it off line briefly to image using the DSLRs M mode. The image here is processed to my liking only and was a 5 second exposure at 320ISO. Had I not been so cold and time limited with the feed I would have done more bracketing. The camera batteries lasted perfectly as did the mount but the phone battery was in free fall when I had to use it as a back up wifi source but fortunately only a few minutes were lost looking for that battery. Thanks god there was no dew!
We had a blast and the nearby roaring lions made it even more fun.
Cheers and again thanks for your advice.
Geoff

[Kunama]

Originally Posted by GOTO

Hi all,
I hope you all enjoyed the eclipse. Our little team made it to Canberra and found the gates open to the Aboretum, wow it was the best spot so we, and quite a few others set up. I imaged Mars at first just to check all but the cold hurt a lot at -2C.
A poor security guard tried to make us leave at 3:30am but I refused and eventually his boss permitted us to stay
The view was great and I had 16,000 views via our Facebook feed with 1,000 likes. The only downside was that using EOS live view limited the longest exposure to 1/30sec and I had very limited chance to take it off line briefly to image using the DSLRs M mode. The image here is processed to my liking only and was a 5 second exposure at 320ISO. Had I not been so cold and time limited with the feed I would have done more bracketing. The camera batteries lasted perfectly as did the mount but the phone battery was in free fall when I had to use it as a back up wifi source but fortunately only a few minutes were lost looking for that battery. Thanks god there was no dew!
We had a blast and the nearby roaring lions made it even more fun.
Cheers and again thanks for your advice.
Geoff

Well done Geoff, I was on the next hill to the west where the white domes are...