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Spring 2008 Kelling


MikeP

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I thought I'd set out my memories of the last few days so that those of you who have nor attended a star party can get a flavour of what they are missing ..... good and bad. Hopefully some of my fellow attendees will add to this thread to provide their insights too.

The journey to Kelling on Friday was fairly uneventful. Picked up Whippy on the way and we were driving along chatting when suddenly he shouts "oh **** **** **** etc etc. I know I'm not the best driver but what had I done? It turned out that he had committed the unforgivable sin of forgetting the black pudding - guaranteeing a whole weekend's worth of insults. As it turned out, that was not the only thing that had been forgotten!!!

We arrived, checked in and drove to our pitch. Steve (FLO), James, Daz, SteveL and Kai were already there, so it was handshakes and hellos all round with offers of cups of tea. Whippy and I decided to get on with tent pitching since the weather looked a bit iffy and without being asked, helpers materialised and we were pitched in no time. While I was finishing off, a chap from the pitch behind (not one of our group - a Ewell AS member IIRC) asked if I wanted a cup of tea since he was just making one. How friendly is that!

Looking round the field, there was an eclectic collection of scopes, mounts and observing "devices". The tents with a hole in the top look pretty good, but I still don't understand why it costs more to have a hole in your tent. :( My favourite is the caravan with a dome fitted into the roof - I've no idea how well it works, particularly in windy weather, but there was also a telly aerial so I guess he had all the bases covered.

Thursday night had been pretty poor and Friday night didn't look like it was going to be any better, which was disappointing, but we were all determined to have fun. Being men and having one track minds, the conversation soon turned to ..... food .... and what we were going to eat. Our resident chefs - Kai and Daz (head chef Greg couldn't make it) whipped up a delicious pasta delicacy in no time flat.

As we sat round chatting, I slowly became aware of a small white R2D2 crouched in the corner that wasn't saying anything. I decided to introduce myself and discovered that R2D2 was in fact a Dobsonian, but not just any Dobsonian - the only example in the country of the ridiculously named FlexTube dob - but more about this little fellow later. Steve and James had brought him along and to keep him company, had also brought four other scopes and mounts plus lots of other goodies for us to try out. Sadly, as we listened to the rain pelt down and the wind blow, there didn't seem much hope.

Whippy came in for some good-natured insults about black pudding, but not quite as much as James - he'd remembered all the important items - tent, sleeping bag, scopes mounts, Steve, bottle of scotch but sadly not .... the poles for the tent!!!! Since we were a bit strapped for space, the poles were being couriered for the next day. Nice one James. Since my eyes were closing, I decided to give up on the weather - good decision. I went off to bed.

After a good night's sleep, I awoke at 5:30 to a pretty clear sky, but boy, was it cold. There are some things that a man has to do no matter how cold it is, so I went and did mine. I crawled back into my tent and read for a bit till I heard Whippy (the man who had promised me an early cuppa) moving around. After an abortive attempt to use Whippy's stove, we went and sat in Kai's gazebo tent, boiled the kettle and had our cuppa. Gradually we were joined by the others and we happily passed away the time till we got round to that subject again. Kai and Daz knocked up sausage, bacon and eggs, but no black pudding for some reason!

It was so cold and windy that survival rather than recreation was uppermost on my mind. Others must have felt the same since the planned excursion on the local steam railway didn't materialise. Strangely though, the day didn't drag. We had James' canvas mansion to erect - not a one man job or even two man in that wind. There was also kit to drool over.

We dragged out R2D2, slid the top bit up, tightened the bolts and shoved a lazer collimator into his focusser to see how he liked it. What a star, despite only having been assembled by ham-fisted amateurs in a field the day before and certainly not collimated, the lazer was almost spot on the centre of his 12 inch mirror. The so-called flex tubes were tugged at, the mount spun round and swung back and forth but the spot didn't move - very impressive. As we carried him back into the tent, one of our members - an imager no less, was looking at him very lustfully. No names though, but you know who you are SteveL.

Having been coerced into taking along my new only used once Takahashi, I was persuaded to put it on show. Pointing at the box through the car window didn't satisfy demand so out it came. Lustful looks again and one or two people stroked it, but sadly it went back into the box and due to the weather there it remained, still only used once. I suppose it will have to return to Autumn Kelling, since everyone wants to have a go with it.

We had a wander round as a group mugging old ladies and bursting kiddies footballs - well actually, we went and had a look at the pitches we have booked for Autumn Kelling. Superb - right next to the toilet block, what more could we want.

As I said before, the day flew by. I braved the showers - picked the ones without the underfloor heating brrrrrr. We had dinner - chilli courtesy of our two master chefs again and settled down in James' mansion. By now the wind was so strong that we felt it prudent to take down Kai's gazebo - which looked like that would mean goodbye to Sunday morning breakfast. After doing that we crammed together again and were joined by coatesg (Graham) and wife, plus others from time to time. We got so used to the wind and rain, that when it stopped, we didn't notice until someone shouted to us that there was a clear(ish) sky.

I have never seen a tent empty so quick. All our scopes had been put away, the only one available was R2D2. Two of us carried him out - an easy one handed lift even for an old bloke with a bad back like me. In 30 seconds we had the tubes extended and the GOTO (Graham) was searching for the first Messier of the night.

What followed was the most magical, productive hour or two of observing I've ever experienced. Graham clearly had a depraved childhood, since his ability to find Messiers in no time flat was uncanny. Mind you Daz and (the still lustful) SteveL distinguished themselves too. We must have managed 15 or more galaxies and globs in the time. Considering this had to be done by skipping round to take advantage of gaps in clouds and there were about a dozen people queueing up to look, it was an immpressive feat. I have poor night vision yet I could see every object - in some cases not the first try because of the variable seeing or the scope moving a bit in the high winds. Thanks from me to Graham and Daz for helping me with them.

I think it was M13 that SteveL looked at and said "my God, it looks just like the image" - that really cracked me up, but there were ooohs and aaahs from everyone. I loved the galaxies - many were ones that are too low down for my home site, so they were absolute firsts. We had mainly used a 24mm eyepiece (don't know any more details) but tried 10mm Pentax XW on some of the smaller objects and we also had a go with the 5mm Pentax XW on Saturn. Not a night for steady viewing given the wind, but Saturn looked its normal beautiful self.

Eventually the cloud cover became 100% again. I wasn't too sorry, because the wind and cold really does take its toll. After putting the dob away and a quick tidy up, I crawled into my sleeping bag a happy man.

Awoke Sunday morning at 6am. I didn't get up immediately, but when I did, I think I was still first, so I packed up my sleeping bag (Vango Viper 1000) which is brilliant (see the link Steve) tent etc. and then helped others do their packing, tent taking down etc. In between, Daz and Kai produced another great breakfast - still no black pudding though and after a quick group photo, we were all off.

It was a great couple of days. I'd recommend anybody who can to attend the Autumn Kelling event. There are already lots of SGLers attending, so you can meet some of our best imagers, observers (and me) in the flesh, look through their scopes, ask them questions and watch them image. Above all, you'll have a great time no matter what the weather does. See you there.

Mike

PS Apologies to all the other SGLers who aren't mentioned - centroid, RoyHoll, BeyondVision and any others I've forgotten

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Yes thanks for writing this :( very interesting to read as I was scheduled to go but last minute work hassles (I'm self employed) prevented this, but I am booked in for Autumn Camp as well.

Cheered myself up by buying motors for my CG4. I'm also in the market for a 12" dob so very interested in R2D2 :D

Jon

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That was a great summary Mike. It just higlights the fact that even when the weather is lousy, a great bond exists at these gatherings.

Complete strangers offering mugs of tea. Great stuff. Doesn't look like anyone got any astro pics unfortunately, but Oct./Nov. may be the one.

Ron. :(

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A nice read , Mike. Especially reading it in front of a nice warm fire. :(

Hope to try and attend the Autumn one for a few days. Though its just before I have to go abroad for 2/3 weeks.

John

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Great write up Mike. Depraved or deprived? There may be a fine line between them! Anyhow, I think the observing list went something like (not in this order, and several chipping into finding the objects):

M35, M3, M5, M13, M51, M65+M66+NGC3628, M53, M63, M64, M57, M92, M67, M44, M104, M81+M82 and Saturn. Plus there was one from somewhere near the Virgo cluster, which was supposed to be M100, but looked a lot longer and thinner so I may have missed by miles and got NGC4565 instead... :( The sky map from Sky @ Night (April edition) wasn't overly helpful in tracking that one down :D

Funniest moment was when the dob R2D2 got caught by a gust of wind and neatly swung away from you just as you were looking through it! Obviously the human wind shield (ie whoever wasn't using the scope) wasn't quite good enough there!

Good to see everyone there - hopefully better (warmer, less windy) weather for the next one!

Cheers,

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Kevin,

Please accept my apologies for my typo - I will correct it immediately.

Perhaps I had another of the group in mind who consumed several packets of Jaffa Cakes. No names this time.

Mike

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Yes thanks for a very thorough write up and at least you got a little look at the heavens not wanting to upset you any further those of us who had our time at Kielder had the two best nights viewing "ever" there Friday and Saturday evenings despite snow falling before it got dark we all got the best observing done that we can even remember! objects such as M51 were just totally stunning we could see just so much of its structure and even glimpses of the bridge detail

best say other things about it on the appropriate thread :wave:

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OK, have just about caught up with work after spending four days at Kelling!

Would just like to say that I had a fantastic time there :D True, we clocked up less than two hours observing (clouds, wind, rain, ice and snow!) but events like these are worth attending for the social and camaraderie alone, and there was plenty of both :occasion5:

Special thanks to the two chefs, Steve (Kai) and Daz (what happens at Kelling, stays at Kelling :(). Thanks also to Steve for supplying a community tent and to James for letting us all move into his when bad weather threatened to blow Steve's away on the last day! And to SteveL, Daz and Steve (Kai) for your help and advice when setting up my EOS 10D for imaging (weather prevented any actual imaging :roll:).

Hope to meet you all again at Autums Kelling 8)

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