Feb 24-27 DSC

[The Thing]

Been here since 4:00. Curry is warming up. The ground is just like Marks garden last week...

Mind my scope as you drive in!

[MarkS]

The ground is just like Marks garden last week...

You mean full of astronomers?

Mark

[The Thing]

That's a new euphemism for rabbit sh.t!

[Fay]

Hope you have a good night. will probably pop down to see you tomorrow

[Whitters]

First DSC for 18 months 

[Sergio]

Hi,
Planning to get there at around 1sh, and hopefully join for the lunch on the pub
S.

[Mike]

Ok Sergio. Look forward to seeing you.

The field is quite muddy by the way so bring boots and a change of shoes.

It's quite a dry mud, like clay, so it sticks to your boots.

[Mike]

Well we had a superb DSC this weekend. Friday night was clearish and then got cloudy so we sat around in our chairs looking at the sky, drinking beers until it clouded over and then went to bed.

On Saturday we had 5 visitors (Fay, Sergio, Kylee, Doug & Rose). Then a group of 7 of us went over the bridge to The White Hart for an excellent lunch. Later that night it cleared and was clear all night long. Most of us stayed up till around 3am when some drifted off. Julian stayed up till 4am and it was around 5am by the time i'd gone to bed.

There were, of course, the usual round of technical problems from just about everybody but I think everyone managed to get some images and i'm sure you'll see them up on the forum soon. Mark managed to get the highest reading ever from his SQM.

I'll do a full report and post it to the website tomorrow.

Mike

[MarkS]

Mark managed to get the highest reading ever from his SQM.

We started off with a normal SQM reading of 20.7 at 8pm with a temperature of 3C but by 3am the temperature had dropped to -4C and the SQM had risen to 21.15
The sky really was a good one!

Thanks to Paul for jump starting my car in the morning because I'd flattened the car battery entertaining everyone with rock music during the evening!

Mark

[Rocket Pooch]

Good to hear it went well, that pub is not a bad one and the beer is even ok   did Mick drive over for any?

[The Thing]

The visitors were most welcome and I hope Kylee and Sergio went away knowing a bit more than when they arrived. We all saw a lovely crescent moon with a nearby Venus.

The night was a right laugh, especially Mark running his car battery down blasting rock across the field. I move we adopt amaretto as the official tipple of winter DSCs! And we all managed to do imaging.

[mickw]

The White Hart for an excellent lunch

beer is even ok   did Mick drive over for any?

The sky really was a good one!

Oh great 
Food, Beer and great skies and I'm left at home up to my shoulders in bloody boxes 

[Sergio]

Guys,

it was a great experience for me and I even managed not to step on any cables 

Thank all of you for your patience with my questions. It was very helpful.
S.

[MarkS]

A couple of images from DSC.  

The first shows Jupiter (on the left) Venus and the moon (with the Bananascope!)
The second shows the new light on the adjacent Indian Restaurant  

[Rocket Pooch]

Is the Banana scope there for scale

That light looks quite bad!