The 2010 Shannonside Astronomy Club Burren Starparty

Met 4 diehards down there in Logues this evening alerady
- ye just couldn't stay out of the pub could ye!
:laugh:

Have a great weekend all at the Burren SP folks, I hope the weather improves. Sorry I can't be there but no doubt there will be plenty of pictures and stories posted here from Sunday onwards to make me jealous that I didn't go!

Seanie.

Seanie_Morris wrote:

Sorry I can't be there but no doubt there will be plenty of pictures and stories posted here from Sunday onwards to make me jealous that I didn't go!
Seanie.

Yes - your ears will be red hot with all the things we'll be saying about you behind your back...

Looking forward to seeing ye all tomorrow!

Thanks to all of you at the SAC for a superb star party this weekend, with hugely successful talk speakers Mike Hinchey, Robin Scagell and Dr. Thomas Bopp. Followed by dream clear skies at the Poulnabrone dolmen site in the Burren, what great views we had!

Jupiter, double cluster, andromeda, the veil nebula (thanks Dave), M13, M11 M8 were all superb!

Keith..

Hi Keith,
I'm glad you enjoyed the day, and like you say, many thanks to our speakers, they were very interesting and entertaining.

We had some fine luck with the weather, it improved in the afternoon with a small bit of clouds when we arrived at the site at 7.30-45. This gave everyone enough time in the setting sun to comfortably set up their equipment, there was a good spread of dobs, refractors and SCTs there, we had a glance at the thin cresent moon in the far western horison as it set.
The sky had patchy clouds until about 9pm and then it cleared completely, no haze and with as dark a sky as we could have hoped for which is great since the site has a 360 degree perfectly flat horison. Robin Scagill gave the site a 9/10 in terms of darkness/horison, which is a great thumbs up.
The milkyway was ablaze through cygnus and could be easy seen right down through sagittarius, the teapot was easily visible and a number of good clusters were hunted there.
Many other deep sky views were had, the nebulae all popped into view, my favourites were the N. american, helix, californian and veil nebulae, and the globular cluster gave their usual stunning views, especially so as the seeing was very good with hardly and movement.

Jupiter was showing up well in the scopes with some great detail visible, the GRS became visible later on in the night. Uranus and Neptune were also spied on.

The wind became a little gustier as the night wore on, but wasnt too bad. We finished up at 3.15, tired and worn out.

We were happy with the turn out and a very big THANK YOU to all who made the effort to come along, I hope the talks, venue, dinner and observing site made it all worth while.

Ya, it couldn't have gone better.
My God I'm shattered now though!
Friday night was patchy clouds but it cleared
later on so we all went out the back of the hotel
and an impromptu observing session kicked off.
The guys at the hotel could not have been more
Helpful.. They turned off all the lights at the back
Making it actually quite dark! The Milky Way was
Right there no mistake about it.
That was fun.
Turnout for the talks was great. Full room, what mire could we ask for,
Thanks to all that made the effort.
The day ran nice and smoothly along,
Mike Henchy's talk about his NASA projects was
nothing short of almost science fiction.
Amazing stuff indeed.
Robin Scagals piece about observing with
was very helpful and lots of great tips on there.
Tom Bopps talk about his discovery, for me at least was,
awe inspiring. Such a humble and down to earth
(excuse the pun) man!
Huge thanks again to Sean Daveron for the use of
The Ring Fort media center for the beginners night sky talk.
With the evening sky clearing nicely my mind was
Firmly set on getting outside ASAP to set up!
Man I got thru that talk in record time!

It was really exciting to see so many scopes set up
and waiting for night to fall.
Knowing it was going to keep clear and with the jet stream
off to the South coast the seeing was excellent.

Thanks also to the all y'all from the North for looking
after Tom at the Cliffs & Aleewee.
Same gos to all the SAC committee and
members that pitched in.
With so much help from so many this year
It was a pleasure to run.

See y'all next year for some more
dark nights under Clare skies.