Steve922

Hi and welcome.

The group is open to all but is only really of interest to people in the area. There is nothing to pay.

Use of the dark site which we are talking about at Sawley will be only available to those of the group who have chipped in as mentioned above.

HTH,

Steve

Yes, lets meet again for a stocktake and a natter. How about a pub off M1J28 ? Er... after the big freeze ends; which won't be until next weekend at the earliest!

Steve

Regarding the insurance - its a group thing which would work out at around a fiver per head. I would imagine everyone would be agreeable to that. IMHO public liability is the crux, not damage to your scope - which is

relatively nothing.

Steve

I've also been down to the site, for an hour before dark and another hour after dark observing with my binos. We would have no business on the grass up where the aircraft go. Our interest would be on the hard standing immediately inside the locked gate.

The hard standing is a bit muddy and there are (mainly orange) lights near enough all around - the motorway is the biggest source of these. There is a piece of the hard standing stretching from five metres to ten metres from the gate where all the lights are blocked out except for the power station. I suggest parking 15 metres from the gate, thus saving the shielded bit for scopes.

The big 'direct' light pollution source is the power station 600m away and it is a pretty big source. It may be possible to erect a temp shield or simply spend the evening with your back to it.

The horizons are pretty good. There is a fair lowish glow to the NE (presumably Long Eaton.) Apart from that, the sky is fairly unaffected - even from the power station.

Accessibilioty is really good. about four minutes drive from the M1 J24A (three for anyone else.) Privacy is good - in the two hours I was there only one car went past - around 6 p.m. Boy racers and others would have no interest in the area. Its a bit noisy (from the motorway) but this is a good thing, kind of just the right level to talk against, if you know what I mean.

In conclusion, this is not a dark site but it ain't bad and I think a good place for our purposes. We should definitely try it for a year and I suspect by the time the first year is up we will not have found anywhere better for 2011.

Just my two-pennorth.

Steve

How quick?

Not a shadow of doubt - my vote says go for it! :-)

Steve

Noel, perhaps you could send a PM out to those who have sent a cheque which you didn't recieve? Er... there's problem there, isn't there? :-)

How about sending a kind of email-reciept to those whose cheques you have recieved?

Or you couild simply list those you've recieved here (though there's something not quite right about that?)

I am (and others may also be) wondering if I got the address right? Not that I would ever **** it up, oh no - not me!

Steve

I'll second all that Red Dwarf said.

Regarding the site being dark, I went up to have a look on the night of the meeting but couldn't find it. I did find a model boat club near the Marina but that had several bright security floodlights around. There was also a lot of street lights visible up that road, plus a cloud factory trashing the Northern horizon. I'll echo what I said in the meeti9ng that if Doc or Glider say its a good site; that's good enough for me. I suspect the site is further up the road than the half mile or so which I went and it IS a VERY quiet road.

I have the advantage of knowing how difficult it is to find a good site, so anything which is just half good gets my £25 - its only ten bob a week! :-)

Steve