Report - 3rd East Anglian Meet

[Black Shuck]

Well the weather played its part and we were down to 5 last night.

Would have been nice to do some observing but Plan B went into full swing and we had an interesting and enjoyable meeting.

First on the list was a demonstration of Steve's (Parallax) electronic wizardry. A Philips SPC900NC web cam was SC1 modded before our very eyes. Steve makes it look so easy but I expect I would have had fried boards, chips and solder everywere if i'd have tried it. Allowing for the "switch" unit and the cable (which in true Blue Peter style he had prepared earlier) I reckon it took a bit under an hour. So allowing for the other bits a whole job in about 2 hours - impressive!! Now i've got to do it justice and get off my lazy a**e and start some imaging.

Dave (Centroid) then went on to give us a demo of imaging magic using Astroart and Photoshop. I'd have been happy with the single 300s frame but 8 stacked frames later and he had a super image of M82 (Cigar Galaxy).

Dave continued and gave us a presentation about the pitfalls of building your own observatory (hope he won't mind me repeating that the main obstacle being SWMBO "the Domestic Planning Officer") The results of which you can see here: -

http://uk.geocities.com/daves.astronomy@btinternet.com/observatory.html

All in all a very enjoyable evening with much learnt and discussed - and mandatory a drool over **Space*Hoppers** (Ian) ED100!!

We will try and get one in before the evenings get too light but there is no reason why we can't meet up for a beer/food somewhere maybe a little more central for those who have to travel a fair way.

We may also investigate the possibility of a "star party" at the venue but this will be subject to arrangements and relevant permissions.

All the best

Bill£

[CELESCOPE]

Nice one Bill , glad you all had a nice time ,and glad the presentation went off ok this time , SO did ya miss me .,lol , i will be at the next one when ever you decide , Star Party oh that sounds good , am i thinking in the field in front of our viewing place , nice size field with super sky view , be interesting ,anyway glad it went ok

Rog

[RayS]

It was a really enjoyable evening thanks to Steve & Dave's demonstrations. It has inspired me to try out my modified webcam now. Ooops sorry Bill, I appreciated the Donuts too and yes Roger, you were missed (no troubles with laptops or projectors this time) but hope your wife recovers soon so we can see you next time!

Cheers for now

Ray

[mightymonoped]

Sorry I couldn't make it Had some serious logistical problems due to my youngest lad being at the Suffolk (Swimming) Championships over the last three weekends. Promise to be there next time. Would've been fascinated to see how soldering is done properly

Tony

[centroid]

It was indeed a very enjoyable evening, albeit a miserable cloudy night so no chance of any observing/imaging, but we managed to put together a 'program' of indoor entertainment , which kept us fully occupied from 17.30 round until 22.00.

Had Roger (celescope), Tony (mightymonoped) and Chris (chris77) not been otherwise detained, and Prasad who we believe has likely returned to India, we would have had nine SGL members attending. As it was, there were five of us, Bill (Bill£), Ray (RayS), Steve (parallax), Ian (space-hopper), and myself.

With three meetings now 'under our belt', a 'core group' of potentially eight or nine members, ten if we count Chris (peonic), who attended our first meeting, I think its reasonable to assume that the 'SGL East Anglian group' is an established entity.

Hopefully we'll see more "local" SGL members joining us in the future.

For those who are not aware, the 'group' came about as a result of an idea and discussion between Bill (Bill£) and Chris (peonic), so its nice to see their idea become a reality. Congratulations Bill and Chris. :salute:

Dave

[Black Shuck]

For those who are not aware, the 'group' came about as a result of an idea and discussion between Bill (Bill£) and Chris (peonic), so its nice to see their idea become a reality. Congratulations Bill and Chris. :salute:

Sorry Dave - just seen your post!

I like to see it as a group effort Dave. If it weren't for you we wouldn't have the excellent venue so thanks for that.

It's a shame that Chris doesn't drop in as often as he used to but I recall he had some pretty heavy work commitments.

IMO it's just nice to meet with a group of sociable, pleasant and like minded people whether we get to do some practical astronomy or not.

Long may it continue!

Cheers

Bill£

[**Space*Hopper**]

:wave: Hi all :wave:

Just wanted to say a very big thankyou for all of the effort which obviously went into making this meeting an extremely enjoyable first one for me, (even though the clouds did their best to make it otherwise ).

Looking forward to the next one already

Ian