June DSC

[mickw]

Also, please could someone arrange for a diagonal rope to be erected at Rother, for anyone who gets lost coming back from the toilet in the dark     

You do realise that "somebody"  would move the end of it and ignore the "lost person's" cries for help 

[Fay]

Oh no, it could be like that science fiction series, what was it called........................Chris????

[The Thing]

I thought there was more obvious light pollution around Blacklands this time, especially to the south. The shower situation at Blacklands is fine as long as you don't try to use them at peak times.

I thought Tuesnoad was great fun except as everybody has mentioned, for the sheep s*&£ and the stream that tries to run down the middle when it rains. Only ever set my scope up there once and didn't manage to image anything.

[Carole]

Well I am going to say I preferred Blacklands to Rother Valley, though I think Rother Valley might be a bit darker.

I was parked right by the lights and found them no problem at all as I turned my tent away from the lights (facing south) and pitched my Astro kit behind the tent completely obliterating the toilet lights.  This also meant I could sit inside the tent with the laptop.  I liked the low Southern horizon and managed to get M20 which I cannot get at home (trees) and cannot do at Rother Valley because we are pitched on the South side right up against the trees.  OK we can pitch the telescopes further from the tents but it's not far enough away to be able to get things like M16, M20 and M8 (I don't think), also having the telescope yards from the tent means I have to keep dragging the hook up away from the tent.

I also like the fact that there is a small shop on site and that it is flat.  It's a longer walk to the showers and washing up at Rother Valley and I might be wrong, but I think there are more showers at Blacklands for the ladies than at Rother.  There were 5 at Blacklands and I am only aware of 3 at Rother.  

Well you can't please every-one, I didn't have a problem with the loos or showers apart from the water temperature and I thought it was a bit off emptying the cess pit at 6.30 in the morning.

Anyway that's my two happence worth, I would like to be able to go to Blacklands sometimes as an alternative to Rother Valley.

Carole appeared out the dark at 11pm thursday

Regarding me appearing as an apparition at 11pm - I decided at around 3.30pm on Thursday that as the skies were good, I would not wait until Friday to go to DSC and hurridly packed, grabbed an evening meal and drove down there arriving at 8.30pm.  As I only had about an hour or so to pitch the tent and kit before it got dark I did not have time to go wandering around the field to see if any-one else had decided to come early and as I hadn't seen anything to that effect on the forum, thought I was on my own.  Was not clear where Mick had suggested we go, so saw a nice spot with Hook up and just got on with setting up.  At around 11pm a member of the public started asking me what I was doing when I was imaging, and then casually mentioned that there were some other people doing the same and he walked me over to what turned out to be Fay and Mick who were quite shocked to see me.  

Could not be bothered to move my tent and was quite happy where I was, so we ended up with a split group.  
C'est la vie.

Carole

[Fay]

Outer Limits was the sci fi series