Hey guys!
I'm back after about 9 days off! Great to see everyone still here and posting madly, HEAPS of threads to catch up on!
Great to see everyone helping each other too, that's really what these forums are here for - people contributing ideas, suggestions, asking questions, etc.
I hope everyone had a great xmas and new year.. i'm back at work on monday where i'll have a bit more time to start updating the site again, news and what-not. Sounds funny I know, but over the next few days off there's heaps to be done around the house etc so I won't be doing too much on the computer.
I've got about 200 photos on the camera that I need to download and sift through.. that's sure to keep me busy too
I went to Port MacQuarie for a week, took my son Jacob (5.5yrs old) to the observatory there on one of their viewing nights.. pretty much the typical type of show, with a video, a talk, and then a quick peek through their 14" scope at M42 (the orion nebula). Dustin from newcastle also set up his
homemade EQ newt outside to look at Maccholz (the same one that I saw at the talk by Dave Reneke on the Central Coast).
It was a pretty good night, jacob asked a tonne of questions up the front.. I think the speaker was getting frustrated with him at the end
In fact, I'm sure he was
Then went up to my parents house at Bellingen, south-west of Coffs Harbour.. I took my 11x70's to take in the wonderful dark skies.. absolutely awesome to see such dark skies again.. the milky way was bright and clear even before my eyes had dark adapted.. after they'd dark adapted it was simply amazing. The LMC and SMC, Tarantula, 47Tuc, Eta Carinae, the Pleaides, Orion, all simply wonderful sights through the binoculars at a dark sky. I took some tripod widefield shots with the camera, but only managed to be able to take a few before fog started rolling in so I'll see how they turned out later.
Anyway it's good to be back!
I'm baaack!
