September DSC - Rother/Kelling ??

[Carole]

Tonight's looking pretty clear as well

Yes, I saw the forecast and thought I'd go a day early to Kelling (today), got all packed up, rang Kelling to just make sure my pitch was available, and it wasn't.   

Only one pitch available and it's not even the main Astronomy event yet.  I didn't want to pitch and then have to move tomorrow.

Carole

[Mac]

Should have booked earlier 

[Carole]

Should have booked earlier

Very funny Mac, I am booked in for 22 - 26th, unfortunately you never know what the weather is going to be like until the last minute.  Off to kelling this morning. 

Carole

[mickw]

The weather forecast suggests Rother will be less cloudy than Kelling 

Looks like Rother is ON   

[mickw]

Well, I'm here, not many other campers though.

Pitch firm and dryish, partly cloudy, bit breezy and reasonably warm .

Depending what forecast you look at, it could be quite clear.

Indian restaurant is "Opening soon" - contractors are in there - I told them to get a move on and they told me to "F#@# Off" .......................
I think that's Indian for "have a nice day" 

[Carole]

Kelling Report for Thursday night.  Clear until about 11pm ish, then cloudy.  I looked up Satellite clouds and saw it was going to clear again at around 1.30 - 2am and indeed it did.  Was clear then until about 5.30.  Did my darks in the gap.  Only got about 4 hours sleep in total.

Fingers crossed for tonight and tomorrow.  Seen Fay and Julian. 

Carole

[RobertM]

I don't understand, 4 hours sleep ... call yourself an imager

Looks like I may possibly be able to get down to Rother on Sat night but won't know till tomorrow afternoon.

[mickw]

Well here I am sitting in a field, sober and bored 

Got polar aligned, synched on one star, decided to start PHD - Nothing 
After about an hour I remembered what the EQmod settings were - Then PHD froze.

Finally got everything working and tried a quick focus - captured one frame, tweaked the focuser then APT froze.
Got everything working again, captured another focusing frame - blank screen, looked up, bloody cloudy.

Tried a couple of beers and strangely the clouds haven't gone away 

Sat24 shows that it may clear up later but I'm not holding my breath 

[mickw]

Well I managed to get targets nicely framed between the clouds, perhaps tomorrow I'll actually capture something other than clouds.

There is an owl or some other screechy creature in the trees behind my van, whoever comes down tomorrow would you please bring a gun

[MarkS]

At Kelling the sky was perfect from 2am

[Carole]

At Kelling the sky was perfect from 2am

Yes unfortunately I went to bed and missed it.  Too Kna tired from being up until 5.30 the night before.
Dew heaters were noted to have packed up, so couldn,t have done anything anyway. 
Today Mark found a broken cable and soldered it for me, and I also bought a spare from Bern on the trade stalls as a back up. 
That's another favour I owe Mark and thanks Julian for the solder. Or did I get that wrong, I know it was a joint effort.

Fingers crossed for tonight, but it's really cloudy at present.

Carole

[Mike]

We have a nice clear sky in Orpington right now.

[MarkS]

2am Sunday - once more the whole camp stirs to voices murmuring "clear skies
" and the sounds of slewing motors!

[RobertM]

We have a nice clear sky in Orpington right now.

It's pea soup north of Tesco, roughly Mag 3 skies at the zenith I reckon.  The only thing visible below 30 degrees altitude was Jupiter...

Sorry couldn't make DSC either (sigh)...

[mickw]

Rother was clear last night until about 2 when the mist started to get quite thick but it cleared again by about 4 - Dew heaters earned their money last night.
Spotted a meteor/fireball about 7:30 going east to west and it was below the clouds

Did a couple of test shots with flattener with and without spacer, I think there may be issues in bottom left corner - Mike did you resolve your problem corner ?

Carole - dew heater problems again ?  You're not still using that cheap power adapter are you ?

Forecast for tonight is shite so I'm off home