SGL at the South West Astro Fair!

[Beyond_Vision]

I have just got back from a weekend trip down to Sidmouth which included visiting the NLO. My wife and I had a great day despite the weather trying its best to spoil it. It was great to meet the SGL crew again and do a bit of window shopping of the gear. I went to couple of the lectures which were very good but I was struggling to stay awake as it was very stuffy and I had been up til very late Friday night taking advantage of a couple of hours of clear dark skies at a local campsite. I set up my AstroTrac and 400D to image the Milkyway and left it to doing its thing whilst I had a look around with my 12" Lightbridge. The Milkyway could be seen from Cassiopeia through Cygnus and down through Aquila nearly to the horizon. Earlier before it was fully dark I had a view of the Moon and let the camp wardens have a look at it then Jupiter there was a few wows from them both. Later on my own I saw a really bright Iridium flare and about 6-7 Meteors two of which were fireballs. I had a view of Jupiter and four of its moons then went on to look at M31,32 and 110 nearly in the same field of view. This was followed by M57, M27, M71, the Witches Broom and Coat Hanger Cluster in or around the Summer Triangle. I then Moved on to M51, M13 and the Perseus Double Cluster. The clouds then spoiled play and I packed up around 2 to 2.30am. The image of the Milkway can be found in the imaging widefield section. http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,29786.0.html

Regards

Kevin

[RobH]

Thanks for sharing your experiences folks

Sounds like it was a great day. Wish I could have been there.

How was Nik Szymaneks' talk?

Cheers

Rob.

[minidaz]

im not sure how the talk went but being there was great fun despite the horrid wheather giving random people evil looks and handing out sgl leaflets also we have got 3 new members so look out on the welcome section!!!!!

minidaz

[daz]

Punctuation. Spelling.

Flipping kids!!!

[applecounty]

In spite of the poor weather I enjoyed my stint at car park directing and dome minding. I kept having to remind myself that this was August, just as the Kensington Dome disappeared, again, into the mist. Thanks Martin2 for your help and morale support. How do you keep so cheerful if the face of such adversity?

Nice to meet James (I kept saying "hello James" every time I passed him, until he had to ask Steve of First Light just who I was) of SGL.

I am not sure if the details of the day, income wise, are still not for publication. I think it is okay to say that although numbers were down on last year, it was not as devastating as some had predicted.

Now all we need is some clear nights for some decent seeing.