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South Wales Star Party October 2014

Mr Flibble

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Mr Flibble

Mr Flibble

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Finally got back and unpacked everything except the tent. Chilling out now waiting for the take away to arrive :-)

Thanks to Tony for helping with the organising. And a big thanks to everyone for coming along and making the event so enjoyable.

Dan, best of luck with getting your new scope sorted and getting your first light which hopefully won't be too long.

Cheers Steve and Cal for letting me have a look through the huge dobs at the veil :-)

Great to meet up again with everyone who attend lucksall and blaenavon and the new faces as well. Its gonna be an early night tonight to try and recover from the saturday night!

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garethmob

garethmob

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What an amazing weekend,   out of the 2 (of the 3) SWG star parties iv visited this has to be the best.   for starters i decided this year to stay an extra 2 days (with last year just being there sat - sun) 

Arriving at 7 with it just getting dark probally wasnt wise but i set up camp got everything ready, and then releised as id gone onto pitch 4, i was 2 pitches either side away from the leccy, and my cable didnt reach :(  luckly i had my trusty coleman petrol cooker for tea and soup and a torch. while setting up (and luckly a few of the guys went to the pub) the skys cleared and i spent about half an hour just looking naked eye before going to bed.

Spent friday finishing off what i hadnt set up, (awning and with a lot of help from Daiwelly managed to get it up (and now know how it works as it had only arrived a few hours before i left thurs) went home (as only an hour away and needed to check on the dog) got my spare power cable and came back. away i went finially with my electric.   my 10m of RGB strip led lighting in side working a treat :)

Fri night was awsome, was up till 3am with my bins, i did set up the LX90 manually but i think i need a focal reducer and some nice 2" eyepeices   (damn you guys letting me look through the nice shiny 2"s haha)  i managed to cross off the 4 objects i wanted to see and my usual favs for a quick observing session.    Andromedia galaxy,  The Seven Sisters, Orion neb and Jupitor.   on top of that i also found quite a few messiers perfectly and a fuzzy which wasnt actually a fuzzy but infact a ring of stars that look like an upside down questionmark.   havent had a chance to see what its called yet but if it dont have  a name one of our group (appoligies i cant remember your name :(  ) affectionally called it the Gaz Atrisim   (but im going to guess im not that lucky haha!)  finially went to bed at 3 and woke up at about 10 knackard haha o well i guess. 

sat was great,  was really good talking to some of the guys, and as the previous day disapeared just to check on the dog before coming back for an evening of sausages, egg and bacon (which strangly enough iv lived on all weekend as its all i could think at the time of shoping that i could fry!)   sat evening was really good, not as great as fridays but the patches of clear sky between the cloud was enough for me :)  finially called it a night at half 12 as the drizzle started and with this cold and cough i really cant afford it getting on my chest i decided to retire to bed.   and with the nice clock going forward at 2am i managed to get a nice extra hour too :) BONUS!!

Today was great,    and after hearing the "gun shots" of Tonys tent going down went over to help,   (now thats a tent id love to get if id ever go tenting)   and within minuits it was all packed away :)  

Finally got the "Ceri Car" (my land rover discovery) started and away i got home :)   

Thanks to all who organised the event,   to Tony and Dave expessially :)   to Lenny for the fantastic bread and butter pudding thats become the staple diet for all SWG meets at blaenavon and to all the people who came to the event and made it the best SWG star party we have had.

Also thanks to the owners of the camp site for their great hospitality and hopefully SWG4 will soon have the dates ready for next year!!!!     Thanks guys  and if you took any photos post away as id love to see some, id forgotten my DSLR so unfortunatly i didnt have any bar my food picci above :(   

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AstroJOE

AstroJOE

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Had a great couple of days at Pencelli Castle. Thanks to everyone for making it such a successful event, David and Tony in particular for organising. Saw some awesome scopes and had some amazing views of the night sky in between clouds as well. Even got to try my first bit of solar observing (WOW the sun in HA was incredible!!). This weekend has really helped to kick start the winter observing season for me. Can't wait to dable a bit more with the DSLR on the C11. Looking forward to seeing some of you at the Blaenavon site over the coming months and everyone else at SW4 next year.

I'll post some pics tomorrow.

James

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KevUU

KevUU

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Holy expletive Batman! I still can't get over the view of the Veil through the 20" dob + Ethos, just gobsmacked, thanks Steve :-)

And if it's any consolation, Steve, I now have to go buy some 2" filters after borrowing Dai's, also for the Veil but a rather more modest view through my own Jeffers' 8 inches.

I had so much fun this week guys, and I really needed it, so thanks to all.

Special thanks to Dave and Tich and Mike/Dor for the hospitality, Lenny for the bread pud, Dave again for letting me cadge looks through his scope and filters and such, Bob for that H-alpha view of the sun, and Mark for being the awesome encyclopaedic fuzzy-finder that is the Human GoTo :D

Finally but most deservingly, big thanks to Dave and Freff for organising and allowing a dirty foreigner from across the Severn to join in the fun :):D

(... ... ping ... ...)

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StevieO

StevieO

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To all at the party, hi guys, sorry I didn't socialise more, I'm still on a steep learning curve and spent too much time swearing at my equipment, the clouds and anything else, to realise what a great sky we had later on on Fri night. Having set up as soon as it went dark, my power tank gave up the ghost about 1am, just as the sky was starting to give of its best.

I managed to get a couple of 4 min subs of M31 off before I had to retire:

post-39242-0-62306600-1414362179_thumb.j

Hope to be back next year, or see you at another party.

Cheers

StevieO

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KevUU

KevUU

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That's a nice shot StevieO. I was trying to see the dust lanes in M31 - tich and Dave could see two but I struggled - but now I see why the second eluded me. It's not that obvious even in the pic, just a ragged edge to the outer edge of the disc. Thanks!

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Freff

Freff

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Despite my reservations on going I went and had six great days.

Many thanks to Dave and Tich for pitching my tent when I arrived on Tuesday. Those guys are stalwarts.

Again, thanks to Dave, Tich, Gareth, Mike, Bob Love and any one else who rallied to my aid when the time came to take the thing down and stow it away.

I knew was taking a risk health wise on going, but knowing the calibre of the guys in the SWG I had nothing to worry about regarding the heavy work.

Thanks to Lenny for the bread pudding, lovely as always, and to Bob for his wife's Welsh cakes.

 

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tich

tich

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Well what a great event it was, nice to meet some new faces as well as some of the regulars
A big thanks goes to Lenny firstly for the help of the unfolding ceremony last Sunday of the mystery machine, for the trip out sight seeing & of course the bread pudding.

Thanks to Dave & Tony for organising the event & making it a success.

Also thanks to Bob for letting me look through your solar scopes & your other half for the sponge cake as it was lovely..

It was great looking at the Veil & a glob through Steve's scope, breathtaking sight even though its cost you more money lol, I see Dan has already shoved a wanted ad on. :evil:

Thanks to the site owners for having us there & they even came down on Saturday & managed a look at a couple of objects with the scope & had a chat.

Finally thanks to MickD, Mrs MickD & Bob Love for assisting with the folding ceremony.

Still got more bags to unpack but that can wait as I've got some things to do, had some strange noises from the car going home so I was wondering  if I were going to make it at times,I  think its the drive belt & tensioners on their way out so will have to get a second opinion.
Sorry that you couldn't make it Steve & that your car was giving you issues, hope you get it all sorted & that you can make SW4


Can't wait for next years event, maybe I'll go for a bit longer next time.........

 

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AstroJOE

AstroJOE

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AstroJOE has one in his previous post, but I can't seem to enlarge the photos.

Yeah I had the same problem Mike, I don't know what happened when I imported them from my gallery. The look bigger if you use binoculars though!!

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