TAS Observing Session Report - Mon Jan 30th

In the end, 4 TAS members turned up for an observing session at the TAS Observtory - myself, Darren Dempsey, Ciaran O'Reilly, and William Coghlan. Others did not turned up due to freezing fog and icy conditions to come in their respective areas - there could have been 9 of us! Arived around 20:10hrs.

Anyway, instruments used were 10 X 50 binoculars (Ciaran), ETX-70 (Seanie), ETX-125 (William), and Celestron C11 (Darren). Conditions were almost perfect, as, for some reason, the majority of the land around the Site seemed to escape fog that otherwise was settling in elsewhere.

The usual objects on offer were viewed - Saturn, Mars, M42, M43, M31, M51, M44 and so on and so on... in fact, with 3 GoTo's being used, there's nearly no point in listing the amount of objects looked at! We also spotted about 8 meteors between us: not alot for 4 people looking. And we must have been down to the minimum magnitude where the skies were free from light pollution. We also remarked how no satellites were spotted by any of us during the session.

Needless to say, the views through Darren's C11 were awesome. I did a few sketches of some objects as my way of astrophotography!

Near to 23:40hrs, it was time to pack up, due mostly to work in the morning, running out of soupand tea, and also due to ICE (not frost) forming on all the scopes and eyepieces!

Darren took some photos, which will be added here later - the ETX's are blue, not shiny white! His hairdryer and power pack couldn't save them all! Recorded minimum temperature of -6 degrees C.



Seanie.

-6 degrees! You're hardy men down there in the Midlands! All us namby-pamby Dublin types had to contend with in Cloon Wood on Sunday night was about -2 or -3! Still, it was worth the bonanza of DSO's we bagged over the 4 hours or so. And yes, when I put my scope back in the boot at the end of the night, there were flakes of ice all over the OTA and eyepiece case! It's what it's all about, though, isn't it?

Where's your observing site, BTW?

Cheers Paul. It is nice to get out with all the gear, even if it is freezing, now and again.

Our site is about 2.miles from Tullamore town centre. Its a little over a mile (I think) down Clonminch Lane, on the Portlaoise road.

Here's some pictures of the 'event' guys! They're linked to the TAS site, which has a few more.


Seanie with his ETX


Wlliam Coghlan, Ciaran O'Reilly, and Seanie Morris (with hot chicken soup in hand!)


Ice, not frost, forming on the ETX (it was -6 degrees at this stage)


Darren Dempsey with his C11 - you can see the shimmer of ice on his dew shield

Seanie.

Looks like a great night lads, seeing the ice brings back a few memories. :lol:

Know what you mean. I remember during my teens, one night a couple of us spent a couple hours on a freezing cold night in the field behnid my house for an observing session. I wore a tracksuit under my jeans. I sat down in my easychair for about 40 minutes, just looking for meteors and satellite. When we finished around 2am, there was frost on my jeans! :shock: