G'day Ron, I hope you've been having a great time while your sister has been visiting. I saw your brief post that you both went for a run on the Gympie Rattler, that would have been great I'm sure, something I've been keen to do for ages but never quite got there.
Sadly I'm working 3 pm to 11 pm Saturday the 14th (same again on the Sunday actually too) but I'm definitely available on Saturday the 21st so as Dave said above re "keen as a keen thing on a keen day" I'm Keen!
(May have a new pair of 20x80 bino's from AOE by then too with luck - great chance to try them on the moon, etc)
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Thought I might mention that for new moon March I packed the car up with astro gear while girlfriend Joy packed BBQ dinner stuff, and we headed off late arvo with no exact plan in mind. I headed up the highway north from Caloundra intending to get some hills behind us to obscure Brisbane's light glow, then headed west-ish to likewise lose the coastal glare.
As sunset drew nearer and nearer I started to despair of finding a good location and thought we'd end up in some playground on the edge of a small town just to get a view of the sky. I actually eyed off the open ground adjacent to a small bush church at one stage but abandoned that idea as soon as I realised how high the tree barrier was nearly all the way around.
The sun had actually set, but only just, and the sky was still light when we saw a roadside nature park / rest area. We pulled in and despite the fact that it did have a large number of trees spread around they were at least widely spread, and by picking location carefully there were significant views of the sky to be had. Lucky for us - 10 minutes later and the light was fading fast!
Long story short we were back off the road some distance with broad clear views directly east and south (thanks to a handy pocket compass, taken along for just such a purpose), and while I set up the scope, etc, Joy cooked dinner on the gas stove I had brought with us. We dined on scrumptious beef-and-bacon burgers and ice cold coke as the stars came out overhead - and the view was spectacular!
There are no lights in or near this park at all (although there ARE composting toilets at the far end of the park, very covenient!) in fact there was only one tiny light visible way, way off in the distance that looked no bigger than a pinprick. The park area itself is approx 100 metres long by maybe 70 metres deep. I set up the scope so that we could enjoy great views of Orion, etc, then as it dropped low in the sky I moved the scope about 5 feet south (Try that with a polar aligned whachamacallit guys
) to enjoy the southern sky vista rising gloriously, and with Jupiter, Scorpio, etc, rising directly through the clear gap to the east of us. The northern view was sufficiently clear to enjoy great views of Saturn over the trees almost all night long as well.
The only downside, and it ended up being a very minor one indeed, was that the park DOES run along the side of a connecting road between towns (literally the Kenilworth - Eumundi Road, on the Kenilworth side of the highway), so being a Saturday night and expecting traffic I parked the mighty Ford between us and the road & then attached a large heavy duty over it on the road side. This gave us a very effective light screen from the road, and I suspect made us invisible from there as well being that it is a dark green tarp mostly obscured by trees from that angle as well. There would have been no more than perhaps 15 vehicles all night long, surprising for a Saturday night, and they were not a bother at all as we observed from approximately 7:30 through to near 2am.
The LMC stood out bright and clear, M44 the Beehive cluster was so clearly visible that it caught your eye as a definite strong fuzzy patch from half way across the sky, Saturn & Jupiter were amazing, I saw for the first time ever the rear "connecting" loop in the Orion Nebula (also saw the flame nebula for only the second time). We observed so many objects, guided by both the Argo Navis and eventually by charts (due to a slightly loose grub screw on an encoder that I could not diagnose in the dark). Observig targets included the Centaurus A galaxy, the Sombrero, Leo Galaxy triplet (plus a number of other galaxies in the Leo and Coma Berenice areas), the usual Jewel Box, Gem, etc clusters, Omega Centauri resolved into amazing detail while 47 Tuc showed a hard bright core indeed, the view of the Tarantula was the best I have ever seen through my own scope, the Blue Planetary nebula was a sblue as I have ever seen, I mean REALLY intense blue. I can only wonder what the various nebula would have looked like were we equipped with a UHC / OIII / NPB filter.
Although the sky was very nice and dark it was not the darkest I have viewed under though it was pretty damn good! I can attribute much of this great viewing to a clear and cloudless night, complete lack of any jetstream, no fog or other apparent moisture (until at least 1am) and a rinse of my primary mirror that morning plus a very careful tweaking of my collimation afterwards. I was also using my Hyperion 17mm ep mostly that night instead of the 13mm Hyperion I usually - I like the mag in the 13mm better but I have decided that the 17mm really does give an even better view and it has now become definitely my favourite ep.
We finally decided to pack it in for the night so we had a late night cup of milo & then packed up and headed home. Another pleasant surprise - it was only 50 minutes direct travel time (it took longer on the way up as I looked around for a likely spot) and about 70 km's each way from home. All in all a great night at a wonderful location, excellent viewing, and home in bed by 3:30 for a nice sleep in the following day.
EVERY weekend should be like this!!
Looking forward to seeing you again soon Ron sharing some skies with you and everyone else!
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Dennis, look forward to the 14th, fingers crossed for good weather and a good turnup
, mate. Amazzzing!!. I am planning on being there with you all on Saturday Night and am trying to round up a few others to come. So we won't be lonely 
Looking forward to it . Bye Zub. 
