Just back from Kelling....

[daz]

Had a very relaxing weekend, and two of the clearest nights I've ever seen at Kelling!!

And for once, I wasn't fighting with cables, guiding (or lack of) and all the other fuss that usually accompanies an imager!

Instead, Mrs Daz and I were treated to a fantastic visual tour of the heavens by Linton (and Mrs) Guise, through his wonderful 18" f/4.5 Obsession!

Feint galaxies, open and globular clusters, planetary nebulae - a vast array of objects that seemed close enough to touch!

Good to see some friends from here again, but as usual, forgot to take the list Stephen had put together, so missed plenty too!!!

Look forward to seeing some of the images.....

[jabberwocky]

Had a great couple of days at kelling, my first time, booked for next year as well. The sky on Friday night was amazing. A bit surprised that for a supposedly fully booked event there were a few empty pitches.

When I got there I was disappointed to see some very large trees blocking a large portion of the sky but this proved good because it made me concentrate on an area of the sky I cant see from my usual observing spot so had a great time viewing stuff for the first time.

Long way to travel from Wiltshire but worth it, roll on next year. It's a cracking campsite and the skies are great.

[Dave]

Back at work. Extremely tired. Some great skies and views.

Companionship fantastic as usual.

Had a a few frustrations Saturday night, but all in all another excellent astro weekend.

Here's to next year.

[Mansnake]

lucky people ! im going to kelling heath today for 4 nights so im hoping it get some views with my bino's. ill have my telescope for next year so cant wait !

Has anyone got any pics? either astro or people etc...?

[badgers]

I'm back at work and knackered, but with lots of data to process from my images.

I can't believe I got two whole nights of clear-skies, although Friday seemed much more transparent than Saturday.

I could have stayed on for Sunday, but I wanted to get back to work fresh.... Did the skies clear up on Sunday in the end ?

It was great to have the imaging set up and running, and spend my free time looking up with Binos or through other people's big dobs.

Anton

[Dave Dubya]

It was a lot more relaxing this year and, amazingly, clear skies on every night we were there.

[onesmallstep]

Hi

Got home 3pm today and have just finished unpacking the car (Tardis more like, it's the only explanation for how so much stuff fits into the cargo area when the seats are down). I went as part of a small group, pitches 275 / 276 Friday through Monday and we had three great nights. All in all we had a fantastic time and have booked for next year.

[michaelmorris]

Yet again I had a great time at Kelling. The skies were superb and Friday night was particularly stunning. On Friday night I swear M31 looked > 1 deg across with the naked eye and had a definite axis and a hint of a brightening at the core - outstanding!

Apart from a troublesome bolt (which staff at Kelling very kindly altered for me) and a broken wind break due to high winds, it was hassle free. Loads of visual observing together with imaging with my 80ED and the Astrotrac I picked up. Loads of subs of M31 and M33 plus pics of the Milky way in Cassiopeia and Cygnus. Met loads of people and it was nice to catch up with old friends and make new ones. Special thanks to Owen Brazell and Ron for great views through their big dobs and to Dave and Kate (Mr and Mrs Astrosnaps) for their help and tolerance!

Roll on Kelling Heath Autumn 2013.

[Rocketron]

Hi all,

Had a great week at Kelling Heath, a few windy nights, I thought the tent was going to blow away on Monday night of last week (out banging pegs back in at 2.30am in the rain)

Friday night was fantastic, the transparency was excellent, saw some of my first mag 14 and 15 galaxies in the Dob.

just like to say hi and thanks to many old and new friends who also made it such a great week especially Clive, James (306), Kim and Di (307), Michael from Worcester, Dave (304), Carl & Jeff from Walsall and Owen.

Although purely visual I managed to snap a few pictures early on Saturday morning with the DSLR, hope you like them.

Roll on next year.

Ron

[badgers]

The blue field had it's own issues on Saturday night though.

We had a bunch of people in one of the Chalets, or should I say, "Chavlets" who refused to turn off the porch lights. They also had every light on they could find inside.

They were very politely asked to turn them off after 10pm and flatly refused.

They went to sleep and left the lights on too.....

/sigh

I've also learned not to use the loos at kelling after dark.... One trip to the toilet building left me almost totally blind when I came out, I almost stumbled into someone's Dob.... Sorry whoever you were.

[Dave Dubya]

The blue field had it's own issues on Saturday night though.

We had a bunch of people in one of the Chalets, or should I say, "Chavlets" who refused to turn off the porch lights. They also had every light on they could find inside.

They were very politely asked to turn them off after 10pm and flatly refused.

They went to sleep and left the lights on too.....

/sigh

I've also learned not to use the loos at kelling after dark.... One trip to the toilet building left me almost totally blind when I came out, I almost stumbled into someone's Dob.... Sorry whoever you were.

We heard some shouting about lights coming from the blue field direction on Saturday night - was that related?

Also, Toilet Block Blindness (TBB) is something that afflicts everyone at Kelling.

[badgers]

The shouting was about a car on Saturday night that was leaving, it didn't affect our end of the blue field, thanks to EMS taking most of it

We did had a car arrive on the blue field on Friday night at 10pm too with lights blazing.......

[matsey]

Got back on Monday afternoon and think I've finally caught up on my sleep! Definitely suffering post-Kelling blues this morning though .

First star party for me and had an absolutely amazing time, not just with the observing, which really was fantastic on the friday and saturday, but with the whole experience. Blue field this year and booked for next year in Red, counting down the days already. Though might have to scout round for something sooner as well to get my star party fix...

Observing was just incredible - the milky way was simply stunning and actually seeing andromeda fill the whole width of my eye piece really was quite something. Also struggling to recognise Cassiopeia because I'm not used to seeing all those extra bright stars was a bit bizarre, but in a very good way!

Our end of blue field also had a problem with a bright white light in someone's tent on the Friday - but all credit to them, when they were asked to cover it over they were really apologetic as they didn't realise how bright it was and turned it off straight away. By Saturday it had been converted to a dimmer red light.

Genuinely one of the best weekends away, just an awesome experience :)

[badgers]

Yes, I did see a glowing tent down that end of the field on Friday.

[Peter Drew]

Anton. Yes, it did clear on Sunday night with skies as good as the previous nights. We shut down at 11.30pm and got up again at 4.00am for a better view of Jupiter, the seeing was the best of the visit.

[old codger]

Yes, also had a great viewing time, but got somewhat annoyed to find the Blue Field toilet block was closed at 9.30 am till nearly 11 am on Frid.,Sat., and Sun., plus all blackouts removed on Sun.I reckon about 50 people were turned away from the loos on Sat. morning.On Mon they reverted to a more normal time of about miday.Otherwise a super time.

Old Codger

[carastro]

Yep had a fantastic time as usual.

Wasn't so happy on the Thursday when not only did my camping observatory get wrecked by the wind and I had to dismantle it AND move the mount off of it so i could move it out of the way, all in the dark at 4.30 am, but the wind also blew my tent so hard the following day that it knocked my camping kitchen over and splattered a kettle of water and all the oil from the frying plan all over the floor (and yes it was 1' away from the side of the tent).

After that the wind died down and it turned into a fantatsic weekend, and I even got images on the Thursday night anyway before the camping observatory starting banging on the mount.

One amusing happening was I had moles burrowing underneath my tent. The floor was becoming very bumpy and spongey (photos attached after I took down the tent). As some-one pointed out, it was fortunate that they didn't burrow under my mount after it was polar aligned.

I've also learned not to use the loos at kelling after dark.... One trip to the toilet building left me almost totally blind when I came out,

Yes I've done that in the past and ended up in completely wrong place trying to get back to my tent and kit. I was advised to keep one eye shut when i go to the loo, and I usually shade the other one too and it works much better.

I noticed a few people disregarding the "no white lights" rule this time. OK when there are clouds and no-one is doing any Astronomy, but car lights going on and off and white torches at 4am, and yes there were still people doing Astronomy at that time so it does matter.

Attached photo is my tent pitch with the four corners marked by various objects. The dark red in the middle is flattened mole hills where I was walking on them, all except the one towards the back where I didn't flatten the mole hill because it was under a sloping bit of the tent.

Carole

[brantuk]

It was good to see you too Daz

Shame I couldn't hang around a bit longer for a natter but I was between courses in the restaurant and having a quick smoke lol. Would've been nice to meet Linton too and have a look through his Dob but we seemed so busy all week we didn't do half the things we planned. I even missed out on that that 6" solar scope and binoviewers.

We had a fabulous ten days with a good 6 clear nights even though a tad windy on one or two of them. Had a great time visiting the EMS group bbq - a real fun bunch of astronomers. And we had the very best pitch neighbours in Clive, James, and Ron who had us laughing every time we chatted, and enthralled with the views through their massive dobs.

We had the "mole" problem too - though nowhere near as bad as above. They came up outside the awning in the night so I missed the chance to mallet them lol.

[red dwalf]

had a great time also, sorry i didn`t meet up with you anton, looked out for you on blue field but we must have missed, also thanks to pete drew for letting us look through his amazing solar scope, one of the best views of the sun i`ve ever seen,

also a big thanks to Kim, i.e. brantuk for coming to rescue me after i managed to put petrol into my diesel motor on the way home !

i blame it on lack of sleep L.O.L.

all in all a great long weekend with some nice skies.

p.s. also the imaging camera decided to go on the blink, just when i needed it most !

[brantuk]

Yep - I came looking for you too Anton but I guess you were out - sorry we missed

[badgers]

I'm annoyed I missed you....

Part of my problem was that I had to set up quite aways from my Pitch and I also had to leave for the day on Saturday.

I was feeling a bit forlorn on Friday, and should have popped by to the EMS zone where I thought I recognised a few people.

But then two nice people from Bishops Stortford set up beside me (Mehmet and Simon) and we ended up talking twaddle about telescopes and eyepieces into the night : )

Anton

[Luke]

Had a great time as usual. Was great to see some familiar faces and to meet some new ones.

We stayed 10 nights and observed on six and overall the viewing was the best I've seen at a star party. Jupiter was staggeringly good one early morning, so much detail to see. Perhaps the air never gets that steady at home, with plenty of rooftops to look over?

Dustlanes in M31, the little cluster next to M38 that John told us about at SGL, the Orion Nebula being the best we've seen it, even though it's still low in the sky.

Many thanks to Linton and Yvette for the amazing view of the Witch's Broom through their dob, and Michael for helping out with a minor emergency!

Great company and great views!

[Guest]

I stayed from Wednesday to Sunday night - best skies I've seen and had a lot of fun catching up with friends and drinking beer!

I posted some pictures on my site here if you'd like to have a look

https://sites.google.com/site/welfordobservatory/home/star-parties/kelling-sept-2012

David

[onesmallstep]

I stayed from Wednesday to Sunday night - best skies I've seen and had a lot of fun catching up with friends and drinking beer!

I posted some pictures on my site here if you'd like to have a look

https://sites.google...lling-sept-2012

David

Hi

Fantastic photos, I was at Kelling Friday through Monday so certainly remember the artillery piece, I mean 22-inch truss Dob with the blue shroud. The skies were the best I've known since I started attending in 2006 and this year I was with a small group of friends who were Kelling newbies which made the clear nights all the more special as I watched the reactions to the views. Apart from a few muggles (non-astronomers) spoiling it with light pollution and attitude it was a great weekend.

I'm booked in to SGL8 with the same friends so hopefully tye skies will be kind to us again.

[brantuk]

Teriffic bunch of pictures David - sorry we missed you this time round - hope to catch you next autumn