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Cumbria Star Party 4 - Nov 18th & 19th


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Thanks Nina for hosting CSP4 even though I only came for 1 night. Curry was excellent and well received so for CSP5 I will bring some Korai Lamb. I'll make it mild for Mike.

Yes there was lots of dew and finally after buying a load of dew strips 6 months ago I finally tried them out and they were very successful...... but the Megrez 90 and the astrotrac are still drying off in the house tonight.

Hope the Thai meal was great as the weather while you eat is not great by the BBC, but it may pick up around 9pm.

Andy

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Cheers Rob, good to hear you all got some decent skies. Dew point sounds a wee bit like Galloway, it was high then as well. More of a visual evening then than imaging I take it.

Clear Skies

Pete

Pete the dew was getting quite bad at a point that some innovative dew measures had to be deployed

terrym2002uk-albums-misc-picture14510-imag0022.jpg

btw, you were greatly missed, so I think you should bring two bottles of malt to the next one :)

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Just back and unloaded the car. Feeling pretty knackered after a GREAT weekend.

Friday night - patchy clear spots from 1am Sat to 4am (so liver took a bashing from the Glenmorangie, Isle of Jura, Glen Moray and Aberlour in the earlier evening) - slept 4am-8am. Saturday night - clear right through until I crashed out into the sleeping bag at 1am (I believe it stayed clear until at least 2am). This evening, wall to wall cloud after a sunny day.

Still, got some Solar stuff in with a PST, Solarmax 40 and fract + white light filter. Mike's 15" Obsession Dob was great as usual. I had my 8" LX90 and the GRS was very clear on Saturday evening.

Good Chilli from Mike and Madras curry from Steve. Excellent Onions in paprika and lemon juice from Adrian (seemed to go well with both curry and chilli).

Roll on CSP5.

Nina - You are a STAR (as always). Thanks for running CSP4.

Tom

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Sounds like I really missed great company, great food and libations aplenty AND some decent viewing. The Aberlour would have went down a treat !

I shall have to account for scope dew protection at CSP5 :)

I shudder to think what the original intention of the pvc ( wee clue perhaps ? ) tape was for. Ahem :) .

Any images from the Solar session ? Canny wait till the next one folks .

Clear Skies

Pete

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Hi All back safely,a big thankyou to Nina and Val ,running a geat CSP4.

I want to thank everyone for their help througout the starparty,arrived wednesday afternoon and Nina and i spent a frustrating hour trying to erect me tent ---with the wrong poles,much to Phil`s amusement,and with an unexpected audience,the local herd of heifer`s,very inquisitive.

They seemed very interested in the windsock pole and spent a long time licking and scatching themselves on it,we in turn were intrigued with their behaviour.

All in all everyone i can safely say had a great time,Adrian kept us all amused with his tale`s and Tom`s knowledge of all things astronomical were welcomed.

I could go on for hours and usuallly do! but cannot wait for CSP5,nice to see everyone and catch up and exchange idea`s.

Again a BIG thankyou for everyone`s help as i was not feeling to good.

Hope to see you all soon.

ATB

Mike

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Hi All

Just want to add mine and Joanne's thanks to NIna for organising a great SP and to all those who helped with the food etc. We both had a great time in spite of the fact that we came down with some bug - (started before we arrived) the great company made it less noticible.

All the best

Stephen

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Thanks Nina for organising & hosting another excellent star party.

Thanks Mike and Steve, the chilli and madras were both very tasty.

Also, thanks to the other members of the CSP malt appreciation society for bringing a nice selection for us to savour.

First class food, malts and company, you can’t beat it.

Roll on number 5.

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Hi All

Just wanted to chip in as well and say a big thank you to Nina and all those who helped in organising yet another great CSP event. It was good meet up with old and new faces, and we even managed to do a bit of viewing too (in between the drinking).

Shame to hear about Sunday evening being clouded out, the radar picture looked so promising too. Honestly Tom, I wasn't trying to jinx it for you die hards.

Well, Jane has stood her hot water bottle down until the next one. At least she knows which end of the scope to put it now :)

Terry n Jane

[EDIT] - Will throw some pics up when I get a moment to go through them.

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Hi Folks,

Glad to hear you all got home safely.

Dropped Reg off in St. Albans and arrived home at 16:45.

We left Longtown at 11:00 am. It was dry when packing the soaking wet tent away.

It is strange that everything fits nicely in the car when leaving home but is a struggle packing at the campsite.

Right, I made two major astro discoveries at Cumbria SP 4.

a) To estimate the severity of the dew, use an un-opened bottle of Ouzo, it shows as cloudy instead of clear when the dew is as heavy it was on Saturday night.

:) If you have a Thai meal on a Sunday evening, the Ouzo bottle shows clear,

so once you had all left for home, there was a good showing of stars between 21:30 and 22:40, then it clouded over for 25 minutes while I had a "House of Lords" whiskey and a drink of the Ouzo. By 23:05 it had cleared again and it remained clear until midnight. I had another Ouzo but the weather was closing in for the night. So I had an early night......

Anyway, a big big thanks to Nina for all her heroic efforts in helping to erect tents, making coffee and bacon rolls and getting the logs for the evening fire.

Well done.

Cheers

Adrian

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Back home again and unpacked.

Thanks again to everyone - it's you guys that make a star party as fun ad it is and allow me to learn something new every time.

And of course huge thanks to Nina for wonderful hospitality as usual.

See you all next time.

Regards

Rob

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Hi Pete

It stayed clear till about 2 although there was a lot of mist around and dew was pretty bad.

A good time had by all - only a few of us diehards left staying tonight. Looking promising again for tonight.

Regards

Rob

get any Data Rob?

Guy

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Hi everyone,

Glad to hear you all enjoyed yourselves. I had a great time. Shame life can't be one long star party.

Thanks to you all for being patient with me, I seemed really tired this time, I don't think being on nights all that week helped any because I do not get much sleep through the day.

All the food everyone brought was beautiful. We definately were well fed.

So pleased we got clear skies . Better dash, just finished work and need to go and wake the family.

Speak soon

Nina

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Yep, clear skies...plus I had a great time learning and imaging - after lots of faffing I managed about 10 x 5 min subs & lots of shorter subs of Pleiades, but couldn't do a flat because my lightpanel wouldn't work. This was my own fault as it was new gear and I hadn't put fresh batteries in it, otherwise I'd have been fine. As it is, my version of Plaedes has extremely large interstellar dust-bunnies thudding across it :).

Thanks again Nina for doing all that arranging & hope to see you all again soon!

Jonathan

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Yep, clear skies...plus I had a great time learning and imaging - after lots of faffing I managed about 10 x 5 min subs & lots of shorter subs of Pleiades, but couldn't do a flat because my lightpanel wouldn't work. This was my own fault as it was new gear and I hadn't put fresh batteries in it, otherwise I'd have been fine. As it is, my version of Plaedes has extremely large interstellar dust-bunnies thudding across it :).

Thanks again Nina for doing all that arranging & hope to see you all again soon!

Jonathan

Large dust bunny - I think it was on a space hopper!

If its any consolation, my efforts for the night were not great, but have learnt a few more things.

How did your M81/82 come out ?

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@ Terry:

My M81 / 82 images were awful. They were very small and blown out. M42 would have been good had I got more images to stack, but by the time I'd moved on from Plaides to photograph M42, the clouds were moving towards us and I only got about 3 images.

Here's my Plaiedes pic. I've done my best to get rid of satellite or meteor lines (not sure which) and lighten up the dust bunnies so they're not black blobs. I don't know enough about the detail of the illuminated dust on M45 so I may well have added a few extra million tons to my photo in the process!

Anyway, I learned a lot from that night. For a first photo using my new camera I'm happy with the result but know that it can be so much better.

Jonathan

Pv2.jpg

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As promised, a few pics from the weekend (fit caption to appropriate picture)

1. Coffee was always on hand :(

2. Everyone trying to look rather busy :icon_confused:

3. The locals were friendly and the milk was delivered fresh to your tent.

4. The locals were rather impressed with Jonathan's new setup :rolleyes:

5. m82 & m81 ( approx 15 minutes with darks) - Lots more data required but stretched the hell out of it for you to see.

6. The three setup subs of M42..... after i finished focusing it was buried in cloud ;)

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