SDAS meeting tomorrow night

Keith, I found a 4 foot by 3 foot piece of blockboard at work you can have. It's solid and should do the job.

Sorry I forgot to mention a time and place to everyone.

9 at Healy Pottery.

The weather is still looking good with a risk of mist and fog.

Just to remind you guys that I dont get off work till about 9.15pm and won't arrive till about 9.35pm. (Have the scope already in the car with me) So you guys meet up at Healy's but don't wait for me. I'll see you guys up there.

I have a suggestion though. With the house down the end of the track having a big powerful security light, I wonder would it be a good idea for Pablo to be first in and park his transit work van first, person behind him leaves a gap and then the rest of the cars park up alongside each other. We would all set up in the gap between Pablo's transit and the rest of the cars. That way Pablo's Transit would shield all of us from that security light down the end of the track. Just an idea.

If anyone else is reading this, you are all most welcome. The more the merrier. Coming from the north on the N11, just after the Kilmacanogue Petrol station, take the flyover and head up the rocky valley road. Healy's Pottery about a mile up this road has a large layby out front of it(Righthand side of the road) if you arrive on time to meet the rest of the lads. If you are running a bit late, just keep driving up the rocky valley road. As the road opens out farther up the valley and there are no longer trees bordering the road, you will see the odd house and the rocky outcrops of the valley sides. At the fork in the road bear left. Keep on going until you are up past the Sugarloaf mountain, where the road stops twisting and turning and opens up onto a long straight. Keep going a few hundred yard and On the right hand side of the road you will see a cattle gate and grate. Turn here and through the gate and head along the dirt track. Bearing left at the fork in the track. Eventually you will come upon us.

See you all up there!!

Don't want to hex things, but the sat images are looking good and the metcheck forcast cloud coverage is getting less each time I check. Down to 2-4% for the period we will be up there. Fingers Crossed!: cheer:

Well I'm home, and nice and toasty in me leaba.

Had a great night once again. Thanks Paul for organising this one. Who needs that Murphy fella! :laugh:

Got to see the white snowball planetary and Uranus was a lovely shade of....white :laugh: Paul and Dave were saying what lovely shades of Blue and Green respectively these targets were. I think they were pulling my chain though :laugh: A Procul Harem song comes to mind, what was it? "A Paler shade of White"?? :laugh:

Loads more targets during the night. NGC this, NGC that. Twas a bit misty up to about 30°. While the Milky Way from above Sagitarius all the way to Persues looked the best I have ever seen it and my first time to 'see' the great rift in Cygnus at zenith, I think the mist lessened the impact of most of the NGC galaxies I tried for. I could see a lot of them but I don't think I was seeing them anyway near their full potential in my scope. Did get to see M33 for the first time though which was a thrill. It was just above the murk. She's a big'un! Dave reckons he saw some spiral structure in it through my scope but either I need more observing experience to learn how to 'see' or I need to visit the opticians. I think Dave has a top secret image intensifier built into his spectacles tbh! :laugh: .

Certainly 45° and up the sky was spectacular. I've panned around Cassiopia and Persues lots of times before but have never seen such density of stars within them before. Panning the scope fast through these area's made it look like looking out a side window on the Starship Enterprise at Warp. Myriad streaks across the field of view.

Got my beast views of M31,M32 and M110 too. What we thought last week was M110 turns out after observing tonight to have been M32, ie. the close satellite Galxay with the real M110 way out of the FOV. While I couldn't see M31's faint disc extend all the way to M32, Its amazing to visualise the oval disc extending all the way to M32 and realising that if the surface brightness of M31's disc was higher, that one would see M31 massively overflowing out of the FOV. Monster is not the word!

My one regret was not getting a chance to scan the milky way with Pablo's uber impressive 25x100 bino's. When I eventually mosied over to ask for a peek through them, he had already packed them away. Damn!! Maybe next time. He'll probably have to lower his tripod legs for this short arse though. How embarresing would it be to have to ask for a step stool to look through some Bino's! :laugh:

We all got to see a rake of bright meteors throughout the night but there was one in particular that myself and Pablo got to see while we were talking. An Iridium flare level of brighness, with a tail that must have been 15-20° long It streaked from around Alpheratz, the top left star of the square of pegasus all the way over to the Lyra side of Cygnus. Spectacular and tbh, its probably the best blue streak meteor I have ever seen. A massive Perseid with glowing smoke train still holds the top slot for me, but that was a lifetime ago. This was a very very close second. Poor Raphael was standing just beside us and was looking in a slightly different direction and unfortunately missed it, as did Paul and Dave who were arguing over a pair of gold and blue doubles or as I would say, a pair of white and white doubles.....kidding I do actually see some colour in stars!:laugh:

Anyway, the usual story. The skies could have been mediocre and I still would have thoroughly enjoyed myself with all the craic we had and the interesting conversation. The 'pretty darn good' skies was the icing on the cake. Great to see Paul, Dave and Pablo the Light Shield Fabricator extrordinaire again and great to meet Raphael. In fact it was Raphael who spotted the constellation Equine!!:laugh: He used aural apparatus to make this discovery as opposed to optical. Called us over when he heard some weird noises in the blackness and spooked the rest of us. Turned out it was a herd of about 6 or 7 horses walking passed us only yards away! Thank God it was only herbivores cause I was imagining some terrible carnivorous things!!:laugh:

Special thanks must go out to the aforementioned Light Shield fabricator extrordinaire Pablo who blocked the security Light down the end of the track from our view with his van. He also extended his roof ladder horizontally about 10ft off the back of the roof with a huge tarp drapped over it. Biggest Light Shield eva! :laugh:

Can't wait for the next one!!

Glad to hear that you all enjoyed yourselves without me:)

Michael.

It was really a good night; over there the Milky Way can be seen clearly and even the air feels cleaner than in the city. I am still learning my way around the sky and having so many stars visible makes it difficult to find the “stick figures” depicted in the charts, anyway I am determined to learn at least the constellations and the brighter stars before moving on.
I am another that can’t see many colors in the sky, only in bright objects and not very clearly, when I was show Uranus I saw the disk but no colors. I still have to learn to observe more patiently.

That firewall that went thru Pegasus was incredible; it will be cool to be able to take a picture of them. That one in particular was especially bright

I sorry I couldn’t keep the binos on the tripod for longer, I having problems with the dew forming over the objectives. I put them inside the van to try to warm them but it didn’t work; even after I got home they were still wet.
Rafael was amazed with the things he saw, I think it was the first time he saw through a telescope and looks like he is hooked from now on.

In the next few weeks I think I will be able get a hold on a few hollow corrugated pp boards that can be used to shield light and wind, they are 5 by 10 ft but I will find the way to make them fit into a car boot, just have to think how. If it works I can get a few every month for free.

On the way out about 150 meters from the site with Rafael we encounter 4 o 5 donkeys in the dirt road; maybe they were making those noises earlier. Did anybody else saw them?

For the next time I need to find a way to kill all the lights in the van (including the reverse) and how to prevent dew and make a better observing list.

Hope we keep getting clear nights during this fall.