South Wales Group Star Party 2013

[stevetynant]

Paul - you'd be welcome to come along - we have group meetings regularly at Blaenavon aswel which are very friendly and have a mixed range of ability and equipment - we all learn together.

David- thanks for the update - I'm thinking I'm going to phone the site and pay up  and probably make tracks from here in the morning unless things change early afternoon

At least I'll get the best night in and set up in the dry

Appreciate the updates - may catch you later

have fun.

[garethmob]

well im here now! just having a nice cuppa and noodles mmmm

can see a nice blue(ish) patch of sky around outside so fingers crossed!  

fair play the facilities here (loos ect) are fantastic,   so clean! didnt expect it at all.

[tich]

It's been a bit of a hit & miss day & tonight but at least we managed to see some objects. It was nice to see Lenny again & meet Gareth. I set up the scope this afternoon & managed a bit of solar observing. I managed to see 3 sunspots which did look much better after I'd cleaned the eyepiece. A bit more rain started so I packed the scope away again until evening time & watched as the skies continued to tease us with some breaks in the clouds. I managed to see the Garnet star, the owl cluster M31 the double cluster & the ring nebula in between the clouds & when we packed away at around 11:30-ish the skies started to clear again, fortunately it soon clouded up again too. I did have a look at the veil nebula with Davids scope after I needed to use the stepladders to reach the eyepiece, curse these short legs!!!

[garethmob]

a nice sunny morning here today!

just checked met office....... giving a "clear night" from 10pm

accu weather on its astronomy section has put a good for stargazing with only 35% cloud which isnt too bad!

looking forward to tonight and everythings on charge again

[stevetynant]

We waited and waited and on Saturday night close to midnight the seemingly all encompassing clouds melted away to reveal a stunning night sky into the early hours in the Brecon Beacons at the 2nd  S Wales star party.

Suprizingly not as many of us as last year but those who did come were excellent company and great fun for the whole time. We had a few guests came by for the night- Paul and Dai Welly who were welcome- Paul staying with us until well past two - hopefully had a great time and was worth staying up for.

The highlight for me, beside the enormous box of Mrs L's bread pudding was seeing Uranus and Neptune for the first time- Uranus especially was stunning in the turquoise blue. Thanks to Titch for pointing it out and sharing his scope. It was a real pleasure again to welcome back Orion into the observing calendar even though she kept us waiting.

Jupiter was also a welcome guest even though Len who had polar aligned and set his scope up on the opposite side of the road to the rest of us tried to stay up all night to observe but it never quite got high enough above the trees for hi to lock on.  Light years  of distance between our two planets and thwarted by 3 foot of twigs lol.

Just to mention as wel the folk who ran the camp site who came to give us a visit took some photos and stayed a while for a chat were really helpful  and enthusiastic for us as a group of amateur astronomers to be on their park. Personally I don't see the need now for us to go anywhere else as a local group - facilities are excellent , staff are very helpful and the skies are great.

A last thank you to Gaz, Titch, David, Tony, Len,Paul and Dai - Couldn't have wished for better or more enthusiastic company - its what this group is all about.

Same time next year hopefully.

Len and Tich chillin out

The Oct 2013 Vintage (apologies to Paul and Dai who weren't here at this point)

Checking the gear out before lift off

Owners dropping by for a chat

Another group mugshot

Titch, Len and David

Gz and the new accomodation

Roll on next year

cheers all

[valleyman]

Although i know the weather was not great, but once again SWG leads the way with enthuasium and friendship.

Last time I counted were 70 strong and getting bigger.

All this success has to go down to guys like Steve who spent a great deal of time organicing this event. So a big thanks to you Steve for all you have done.

Pat

[stevetynant]

Pat - thanks for your comments but I can't take the credit for this.

Matt kicked off the first group meet at Pencelli which got us rolling but David (Mr Flibble) actually organised this event not myself though I fully agree with you the strength of our group is the enthusiasm of its members.

Hopefully with that enthusiasm and the new members we see at Blaenavon regularly we can build on this year on year - it really is a good event with some great people participating already and the venue is ideal IMO. 

[daiwelly]

It was great to meet all you guys, and thanks to David for columniating my scope I am only sorry I could not stay with you all, I stayed out till 22hrs with heavy cloud cover never the less i was up at 4 am and had some great views of Orion and tried out my cheap and nasty web cam conversion to take some shots of Jupiter, but i need to convert them so i can sort them out in registax,

[stevetynant]

Did you manage to find the Nebula Dave- M42?

[daiwelly]

Did you manage to find the Nebula Dave- M42?

Hi Steve, i did it was great, but the sky was so clear i did the tour thing, and then found Jupiter i just had to try and get some shots of it so then the rest of the early hours 05:10 to 06:30 was spent on Jupiter its the first time I have seen it. I did manage to get some shots of it but i need to clean them up. the banding is clearly visible and the dark spots are visible too. I have downloaded sharpcap, so cant wait to try that out it will then be in the right format for registax I hope?

[stevetynant]

fingers crossed - see if you can post some of your results when your done with them Dave so we can all take a look. Cracking night last night eventually wasn't it.

[tich]

Year number 2 was definitely a success & I'm already looking forward to meet number 3. David it was great catching up & thanks for organising it & helping with unfolding & folding the mystery machine, Tony it was nice to meet you although for some reason we could all hear a bear growling from your tent area at night but your tent is pretty awesome!!! Lenny it was great catching up & having a laugh, glad you like the mystery machine's foldaway party trick lol, if you could thank missus Lenny for the bread pudding it was lovely, Steve nice seeing you again & next time you're more than welcome to have another look through the scope, Gaz I'm impressed with your folding camper & that mount that you have, I fear another spend might be done sometime in the future it was also nice metting Dai welly & Paul too, for some reason my pitch ended up being a bottle bank, can't think why ,talking of which I managed to get home ok.

Last night was the the best ever as we all waited for the clouds to disappear & when they did the skies didn't fail to impress. M31 again was looking brilliant with the dust lanes clearly showing along with M110 & M32 in the FOV, I had a look at M76 the little dumbbell nebula, which to my eyes looks like a bonio biscuit  the garnet star, double cluster, the owl cluster M27, M57 the list is endless. Lenny was pretty impressed with me getting M42 between two trees although after about 5 minutes the branches started to get in the way. Jupiter was up although seeing wasn't great the banding was easily seen as well as 3 of its moons, in fact even without the scope one of the moons was seen with the naked eye, Uranus & Neptune were also viewed & I was lucky with Neptune as it was placed behind a tree but the blue disc was easily visible. The milky way just looked gorgeous & the campsite itself was brilliant.

Here's a few piccies















Unfortunately the lenses used on the DSLR are quite pants so I need to find something much better for these wide shots so these aren't great I'm afraid;





 

[daiwelly]

Hi I have done a report sheet first attempt:

there is a picture of Jupiter my very first picture not very good, but was taken on a Bison webcam  converted, lot of work to be done on photo's i have already taken and videoJupiter.xls

[bats]

Hi All

Many thanks for the warm hospitality extended to me on Saturday night. I had a great time and have since bored the missus to death!!

The views of Jupiter were simply stunning ( I am now planning to upgrade my scope!!). Thanks to everyone that let me have a look through their scopes.

Looking forward to Blaenavon and the next party next party at pencelli

Paul

[valleyman]

Apologise to David (Me Fibble) for confusing him with Steve.

A Big thank you David for all your efforts arranging the Star Party this weekend.

Pat

[Freff]

What a great 5 days I had.   Many thanks to everyone for making it a memorable event,  especially to Dave and Tich for helping me get the Marquee erected and down.

Also, together with Steve,  for the great views through the scopes. (big contraptions)    Not forgetting Lenny for the energy sustaining bread pudding,  which is always welcome after a long day.

It was good to meet Gareth again, and daiwelly for the first time. I'm glad Paul (bats) enjoyed his evening,  I look forward to him coming along to Blaenavon.

Unfortunately, I was unable to talk to the big guy before leaving, regarding organising next years event. They were having a family lunch so I felt it not a good first step to impose on that.

Many thanks again, and hope to see you all again in a few weeks at Blaenavon.

[faulksy]

so when is the next meet and were, looks a great location. glad you all had a good time

[Freff]

Those are great images Steve, I like the candid ones. The group shoots are also good, I wouldn't mind a couple hi res ones for the obsy if possible.

It was good to see the owner getting involved and showing enthusiasm.

[garethmob]

Hello guys

heres my right up

the first night for me (i only did friday and saturday) the skys were on and off with large patches of clear with small patches of cloud drifting over. this did happen frequently with every one running to their scopes for a look and retreating back to the circle when the clouds came back.

the saturday night though i predicted from 10pm it would get clear.....  half 9 checked, dave (mr Fibbles) updated us with a new update of 11 which when 11 came i checked ant 12ish.   well 12 came and the clouds passed by leaving the most dark and perfect sky iv seen for a very long time, it was fantastic.  quickly i set up the astrotrac (but only had short subs not long ones as i should of done) 

throughout the night i saw loads of different objects with my bins and every ones scopes who were so kind to let me have a look (tich, len, dave and steve) and i think i saw neptune, uranus, m81/m82, andromeda (which was a naked eye object) behive, and the double cluster (again both naked eye)  some nice open clusers in auriga (m36 NGC 1792) and a few others (there was 2 more and starry nights showing as an emisson neb but didnt think you could see them without filters?)  the big and little dumbbell and the garnet star  but also saw jupitor and by 3 when i decided to pack in tich had gotten his scope straight at the sword in orion right through the trees and it looked fantastic

all in all it was fantastic and meeting every one again  (tich, tony steve david and lenny as well as dai and paul) was great!   and thanks again to mrs lenny for her fantastic bread and butter pudding.... it seems the now staple of the welsh astronomer!!

sadly i did take some photos but i cant do anything with them untill iv got my windows working on my mac (darn computer)

looking forward to the SWV 3 now!

[stevetynant]

Those are great images Steve, I like the candid ones. The group shoots are also good, I wouldn't mind a couple hi res ones for the obsy if possible.

It was good to see the owner getting involved and showing enthusiasm.

Hi Tony - if you want to PM me your email I'll send the original files over - the one is cropped but I'll send you both if you want to play about with them

so when is the next meet and were, looks a great location. glad you all had a good time

Mike I think the next meet is at the end of October in Blaenavon but its a bit of a hike for you when your driving through all those dark skies in mid Wales- not that you wouldn't be welcome.. Hopefully we'll have another star party in Brecon next year - just need to keep your eyes open in the forum -its great fun and you don't have to do the whole week of course.

[Mr Flibble]

What a fantastic Star Party!

We had solar observing, dark clear skies, great company with plenty of banter and lots of bread pudding :-)

But I'll also remember this star party for the sheer diversity of portable abodes that popped up! Tich its always a joy to see the mystery machine roll in and get unfolded, those folding caravans are absolute genius! Its been a few months since we last met up so it was great to spend a few days catching up. And Tony it was a pleasure to help with your inflatable tent, it was an absolute breeze to put up (no pun intended :-)) And of course Gaz the canvas Starcraft was very apt for a star party! Not to mention the fact that Lenny got the bed into his new tent this year :-)

We certainly had a large dose of observing this year. Tich and Lenny had their scopes trained on the sun and we managed to see a fair amount of solar activity with several sun spots. We had a good window of opportunity on the thursday night with some inky black skies to get a taster of what was to be a cracker of a night on the saturday. And what a night it was. It started off with plenty of banter whilst waiting for the skies to clear, and then hey ho the milky way appeared in all of its glory as if by magic. We saw too many things to list but the highlight for me was seeing Neptune for the first time in Tich's scope :-)

I'm glad we all made it this year especially as there were a few scares leading up to the event itself with Tony jarring his back and Steve turning his ankle. But what I'd really like to say is that we all contributed to this event. We all discussed and decided on the venue and the dates, both online at SGL and at the blaenavon meets, and of course by everyone coming along we all made the event happen :-) Cheers everyone for making everything so easy :-) Already there's been plenty of excellent suggestions for organising the next event so fingers crossed we'll have another good one and hopefully we'll see some more faces, both familiar ones and also some new ones as well.

Roll on the winter observing!

[faulksy]

Hi Tony - if you want to PM me your email I'll send the original files over - the one is cropped but I'll send you both if you want to play about with them

Mike I think the next meet is at the end of October in Blaenavon but its a bit of a hike for you when your driving through all those dark skies in mid Wales- not that you wouldn't be welcome.. Hopefully we'll have another star party in Brecon next year - just need to keep your eyes open in the forum -its great fun and you don't have to do the whole week of course.

shame I missed that one Steve, it's always the same, I said last time I would meet up never mind the sky's not going anywhere. Mike

sent from my Sony Xperia

[stevetynant]

What a fantastic Star Party!

We had solar observing, dark clear skies, great company with plenty of banter and lots of bread pudding :-)

But I'll also remember this star party for the sheer diversity of portable abodes that popped up! Tich its always a joy to see the mystery machine roll in and get unfolded, those folding caravans are absolute genius! Its been a few months since we last met up so it was great to spend a few days catching up. And Tony it was a pleasure to help with your inflatable tent, it was an absolute breeze to put up (no pun intended :-)) And of course Gaz the canvas Starcraft was very apt for a star party! Not to mention the fact that Lenny got the bed into his new tent this year :-)

We certainly had a large dose of observing this year. Tich and Lenny had their scopes trained on the sun and we managed to see a fair amount of solar activity with several sun spots. We had a good window of opportunity on the thursday night with some inky black skies to get a taster of what was to be a cracker of a night on the saturday. And what a night it was. It started off with plenty of banter whilst waiting for the skies to clear, and then hey ho the milky way appeared in all of its glory as if by magic. We saw too many things to list but the highlight for me was seeing Neptune for the first time in Tich's scope :-)

I'm glad we all made it this year especially as there were a few scares leading up to the event itself with Tony jarring his back and Steve turning his ankle. But what I'd really like to say is that we all contributed to this event. We all discussed and decided on the venue and the dates, both online at SGL and at the blaenavon meets, and of course by everyone coming along we all made the event happen :-) Cheers everyone for making everything so easy :-) Already there's been plenty of excellent suggestions for organising the next event so fingers crossed we'll have another good one and hopefully we'll see some more faces, both familiar ones and also some new ones as well.

Roll on the winter observing!

David- just to add to this - I thought the idea of us all making our own arrangements with the camp was a much better idea this year - the previous year put a lot of onus on Matt to make things happen and when we got the inevitable no shows it must have been a pain in the neck for him reorganising and shuffling the deck.

I've also emailed the site just to thank them for their hospitality and get some feedback - if I get a response I'll post on the group page.