Bushy Park

[dick_dangerous]

Hi All,

So firstly it's not technically Surrey, it's on the Middlesex bank of the river, and secondly this is probably jinxing it but...

Looking at the forecast and my social calendar, this Sunday 17th August is looking to be a good one, so I shall be at my "Astro Bench" in Bushy Park from about 9.15pm onwards. My plan is to have a pop at Saturn and Mars, then move on to a few DSOs and have a crack at Comet Jacques.

PM me if you're thinking of coming along and I can give you the location of the bench. It's near to Hampton Hill Pond. If the forecast deterioates then, obviously, I won't be there!

Cheers,

DD

[swamp thing]

Is there vehicular access DD?

[dick_dangerous]

Unfortunately they close up the roads through the park, including the car parks, before it gets dark. You can often find space to park on the suburban streets around the park, and there's no parking restrictions (That I'm aware of) - a lot of people do this if they're visiting during daylight hours.

DD

[nytecam]

Good luck tonight DD @ Bushy - Saturn and Mars could be tricky according to CdC @ 6deg and 1deg alt at 9.15pm

[dick_dangerous]

Good luck tonight DD @ Bushy - Saturn and Mars could be tricky according to CdC @ 6deg and 1deg alt at 9.15pm

That low? Oh dear, they might be a bit of a write-off in that case. There's not much going on planets-wise until next year from what I can see. I shall content myself with wrestling DSOs out of London's light polluted skies, and hunting down the comet...

At the moment the bigger worry is the weather - the sky is slate grey out there at the moment, although the weather forecasts confidently predict that it'll be clear by this evening. We'll see!

DD

[nytecam]

That low? Oh dear, they might be a bit of a write-off in that case. There's not much going on planets-wise until next year from what I can see. I shall content myself with wrestling DSOs out of London's light polluted skies, and hunting down the comet...

At the moment the bigger worry is the weather - the sky is slate grey out there at the moment, although the weather forecasts confidently predict that it'll be clear by this evening. We'll see!

DD

Sorry DD - my PC runs permanently on UT/GMT for astro not BST so you've got an hour longer - I think!

[nytecam]

got some pics from home last night of Comet Jacques and posted on SGL planetary images

[PeterW]

Oops, missed this post. Be good to meet up again, a lot of business trips of late. I know your bench well!

Cheers

PEterW

[robjohnb]

How often do you visit this site for observations?

I'm Twickenham way and this is possibly the only nearest darkish site we have.

I seem to spend more time building scopes than actually using them but would be interested to find out what the viewing is like there.

Regards, Rob

[PeterW]

What scopes have you got? Weather has been bad of late and work has stopped me getting out for a while. Not sure how often [removed word] gets out into the park. We have had some reasonable views... Gets you way from the direct streetlights that plague us so much. I think there might be some parking by the nearest park gate, but not sure. Be good to arrange some observing.

PeterW

[robjohnb]

Been working on this...

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/167567-10-f48-diy-ota/

But not used it in anger yet. Fits onto an old eq-5 that I've tried to automate.

I have other stuff like 20x80 swift bino's.

What do you use?

Rob

[PeterW]

Solar imaging mainly. 8"f4 on an eq6 when I have time and the skies clear up. Nice looking scope build, a shroud and front light shield and you'll be good to go. The "Surrey crew" on sgl head off to near docking, but not all of us have cars.

Cheers

Peter

[robjohnb]

Would that be the Dorking astromania events? have been to a couple.

I like the idea of solar observing. I'm constantly tinkering with monitoring Solar storm events, we surposed to be at a solar max for these. Here's my crude website...

http://robjohnb.6te.net/test2/

The software I write is somewhat buggy, so not always running.

8"f4 sounds nice and portable, eq-6 maybe not so.

Rob

[PeterW]

Whitelight, halpha and CaK, imaging. Always something to see in calcium. I try to grab images when I can. I have always been meaning to make a magnetometer to detect CME, but websites give you enough of a heads up usually.

The observing is at ranmore, which also use by Ewell AS and SGL Surrey.

The eq6 is nice and stable and goes-to when it feels like it, but is not lightweight.

Good to come across another local observer.

PeterW