Kelling Heath - September 2012

[Carole]

Well what a difference in the last 24 hours.  The wind dropped and the sky cleared around late evening and was pristine all night.  Julian and I went to bed whoops I should make it clear we did not go to bed together, at around 5am, I think Mark was 4.30am not sure about the others.

Saturday, sunny and no wind, traders all here and we've all been window shopping

Looking forward to another clear night.

Carole

[Carole]

Another clear night, Mark got his best sky reading ever at 4.30am.

Forecast is clear tonight after midnight.

Carole

[Mike]

Another good night last night, but not as good as Friday night as there was some moisture in the air reducing trasparency. Hopefully everyone got some good images.

[MarkS]

I'm now home after spending Friday and Saturday nights at Kelling.

Apparently the Thursday night was clear but very windy - preventing much imaging and the wind buffeting the tents kept  some folk awake most of the night.
Friday was sunny almost all day (I arrived at 11am) and the night was clear after some initial cloud.  SQM readings were all around 21.29
Saturday was sunny all day and the night was clear but a bit full of moisture. SQM readings were around 21.10 to begin with but by 4am it had improved to an astonishing 21.38 with a slight wind.  This is the highest reading I have seen so far on my meter but then I've owned it less than one year.  The sky was really excellent.  (The previous best was 21.31 at March DSC at Rother Valley)

Spent both nights imaging until 4:30am - the Soul Nebula two nights running.

Mark

[JohnP]

Excellent mark looking forward to seeing image.

[MarkS]

This is 4 the rotor contraption that was buzzing the Kelling Heath campsite yesterday (Saturday) afternoon.



So what is it?

The image is a crop at full size - so I can't zoom in any closer into the picture.

Since we have not yet identified it, it is literally a UFO.

[Rick]

Presumably some breed of radio-controlled quadcopter...

[Carole]

I saw the UFO again today while I was packing up, there were a group of blokes about 150 yards away with a remote control.

Carole

[Mike]

Yeah I saw that as I was leaving. It had some kind of PTZ cradle underneath ad a camera attached. I guess he was doing aerial photography.

Petra and I also nearly ran over a Slow Worm on the road as we were about to go. I stopped and got some photos of it. I've never seen one before. I'll post a picture up later once i've downloaded my SD Card.

[Mike]

Here is a picture of the slow worm. It was a very beautiful creature.

[Carole]

Lots of nice nature at Kelling.  There are apparently adders in the Heath as well. 
Plus moles - see my separate thread on that!!!!

Not sure I've seen a slow worm before either but I've seen adders in The New Forest and also at Chartwell.

Carole

[Fay]

Bit windy at Kelling, beautiful skies, i really enjoyed it, had great company, done & received lots of visits. Laughing wore me out.

did not sleep the first night as I thought tent would blow away. too windy for imaging. next night did some Milky Way shots, new to me as used Canon, not looked at them yet, but not holding my breath. Next night was doing some good Elephant trunk, everything looked like to was ticking along but it seems power plug lost connection & so lights were on but nothing happening, kept calm & packed in........................... will add to this, at home.

Have a glut of sunset shots!

[mickw]

The Slow Worm is so cool, a bit like my my Grass Snake at newchurch except it's a Slow Worm and er alive