Open Invitation to EAE Summer Star Parties-Mt Parnon, GREECE

What a great night, the sky is pitch black there, as good as Doonbeg itself.
The photo above seriously exaggerates the sky glow visible there, the one to the left might be Ennistymon and the one to the right is Lisdoonvarna, these were all but invisible when there was no cloud. There was a small glow to the north east were we think lies Galway city, and to the south east was Ennis and Limerick, but these were small glows that had no appreciable effect on the sky.

We had a good look at the usual set of globular clusters in Hercules and Ophiuchus, and a run through some galaxies in Ursa major and Leo.
We had a look at the tiny 6 arc second disk on Mars, some dark features + the polar cap were visible, Saturn was imply stunning and at 500x went through good seeing where it looked like a photograph. At the start of the night the mirror was turbulent but within an hours it had settled down you could literally dive right into those globular clusters.

The viewing highlights for me were the bigger globular clusters at 500x, the spiral arms of M51 (cant get enough of that one) and Saturn and its many many moons.

Leon, it was great meeting you and many thanks for the book, I hope you enjoyed yourself and saw much of your check list, we'll meet again in Greece and Russia for sure.

We packed up at around 3am when the clouds rolled in, this site is fantastic, the perfect observing site, no houses, no tree or mountains, the carpack is compacted gravel and is very big and well off the road which was fairly quiet at that time of the night. The club is going to start using this site for its observing sessions.

If you want to see the site go to 53 degrees,2mins 51.54sec north, 9degrees 8mins 28.8west in google earth and you'll see the start of the building of this carpark (I'm not absolutely sure of the location but it does look like the best fit in my minds eye).

So you had a good time Frank, Dave and Leon!
This is a historical photograph, the 1st irish-greek meeting, and I hope many more will follow!
I am glad you guys sorted it out for a small trip and an observation with Leon, that was excellent!
And this new observing site discovery was a cherry on the pie.

PS: Leon, I am a little jealous of you. The biggest apperture I have put my eyes on is just a 18" Obsession-ator.
PS2: Me and Anthony are waiting for a full formal report from you, too!

Dave/Frank.

I understand Leon will be in Dublin on May 1st. Co-incidentally were (ai) having a telescope night in the phoenix park on that night. If Leon has no other plans I'd be happy to meet Leon and bring him along and maybe even a beer or two afterwards:) Can you pass this invite onto leon please as I don't know how to contact otherwise.

Hey Dave,

My handy no is 00306974463730.

His mobile there is the best way Dave.

Well, I went on the aer lingus site today and finally got around to booking the flights, same as Michael, I'll be seeing you all in Greece in July