3 Men 3 Scopes and a Billion Stars - Quick report

[Pig]

I arrived at the location early around 9 o'clock, I was the first to arrive and, as usual for me, I wondered if I was in right place.

My first impression was "what great spot this is " I could see almost to the horizon in every direction. The twilight was a brilliant sight full of pinks oranges and blues.

9:30 came and no one else was here, so once again I thought I had the wrong place. I was just about to go and have a walk about the area to see if anyone was near when a car pulled in, it turned out to be Dave. Pheeew.... I was in the right place.

We said our hellos and began to set up our scopes, after about 10 minutes another car pulled up, this turned out to be Simon. After a few few more hellos and a couple of handshakes we were ready to go.

I looked in my RACI finder to start the alignment process when it suddenly dawned on me how dark the night sky was compared to my back garden, never before have I been so spoiled for choice , there were so many bright stars to choose from that i didn't know where to begin the alignment. I decided to take the easy option and performed a Solar system alignment on Jupiter, this gave the scope a chance to cool down and give me a chance to decide which of the billion bright stars to select for a 2 star alignment.

The seeing was not as good as it could have been and Jupiter was a bit wobbly due to the rising thermals, however, it did gave us all a good chance to look through each others set ups and compare the moons and bands of Jupiter ... I was impressed by all of the scopes and as it turned out there wasn't too much of a difference between them.

I am not going to rattle on about everything I saw but it think the 3 of us would agree that we a had some great results, for me the Ring, Catseye and Blue Snowball nebulae were top of my list for the night, especially as I had not managed to see them before.

I also heard Dave's joy on at least a couple of occasions of how he had manged to find the Ring nebula without using a "goto" system and that he had managed split Polaris.

I am glad Simon was there as I would not have realised just how much there was to be seen , for this I would like to thank him as his experience certainly helped me as I am sure it did Dave.

All in all and considering we were 3 complete strangers prior to the meeting I had a very enjoyable time swapping and comparing eyepieces etc,,, and I could not have wished to meet 2 friendlier and likable guys, it just goes to show what a good bunch of people us amateur astronomers are.

I am really looking forward to the next meeting.

Shaun.

[Simes]

Was good to meet you - and a successful nights viewing I feel!

A good few DSO's, a few meteors and some satellites drifting across now and again.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

[Pig]

Yes it was good fun Simon and nice to meet you 2 guys

I was surprised how cold it got later on though, I am just about to pop outside again

[DaveJFT]

Yes Shaun, for my first night of scoping away from my back garden I could not have asked for a better experience in both viewing and company. Once I'd found it(!) I thought the Double Cluster was particularly stunning (which is why I stayed on it for so long!)

The evening has really shown me how much a beginner can learn just through sharing some time with more experienced astronomers.

I look forward to our next opportunity to get together at the dark sky site and perhaps meet more of the group.

Dave

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk HD

[Pig]

Thank you Dave . The double cluster is one of my favourites, I often wonder how many stars they contain I agree it would be good to meet more of the group.

[andyboy1970]

Glad you had a good night, it is the best way to enjoy Stargazing.

Hopefully meet you guys next time out.

[Pig]

Hiya Andy,

I am looking forward to meeting a few others,it certainly makes it more interesting when you have a choice of scopes to look through and share thoughts etc ....

It could also save you quite a bit of lolly if you can try out equipment and make sure it is what your expecting

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice report. I just changed the colour of the text to "automatic" as I at first could not read it (black on a dark grey background).

[Pig]

Thank you Michael

It looked fine to me, its probably because i cut and pasted it from an email, I will have to remember in future

[Pyrodave]

H Shaun

Good report, I missed a good night observing by the sound of it . I didn't get the emails till yesterday so was unaware there was a meet

Hope to see you soon

[Pig]

Hiya Dave and thank you.

it was a good nights observing, Hopefully you can make the next one.