Safe(r) Sites

[Stub Mandrel]

Is there a way of sharing safe locations to set up your gear, or to arrange to meet up with fellow astronomers through this forum without having to post in a publically viewable topic?

Ideally something like the classified where only people with 50+ posts can access.

I don't fancy advertising to the world when I may be alone in the dark, even if my kit is not particularly expensive and I'm neither afraid of the dark or small...

[Steve Ward]

Via Personal Messages I would suggest ... 

[ronin]

My opinion is that it all becomes a bit complicated. Have to say I rarely read the section on groups as it doesn't seem to work. If I said "Anyone going to meetup at X tonight?" it is immedialty lost from the top of the pile by the next posting in the section and so never gets really seen. As it appears then somewhere down the list of areas it is lost. Might be more use if every county was listed and not areas. East Anglia includes Norwich and Ipswich and everything else between mainly irrelevant to me, oddly some of Beds and Herts are useful but not Bucks and little of E Anglia.

The one option I can see is simply make contact with a few people and then you act as coordinator, either PM or email. But you would have to take on the role of coordinating it at whatever period was decided. It is how a club works and operates and so far I do not see anything else that accomplishes the same by any other method.

[nightfisher]

You would be best to form a close network of people on here, then have a multiple pm set up so you can ping a message to those in the know, to see who is up for a meet

[Stub Mandrel]

31 minutes ago, Steve Ward said:

Via Personal Messages I would suggest ... 

But that implies you already have someone to link up with...

[nightfisher]

4 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

But that implies you already have someone to link up with...

If you dont want to advertise where you are going then the only way is to set up a network, a post in a relevant section would sort it, then arrange details via pm

[JG777]

A few of us here formed the core of our local group but we did not end up arranging observing nights via SGL. Instead we created a web site for local people to find us and only once we have met them did we add them to our contact list and let them have the details of the dark sites. In recent times we created a closed Facebook group again with people we have met or already on our list so we always knew who would be attending. People in the group post on there to let others know they are going out , plus anything astronomy related including images. The bigger deal is securing a safe dark site with parking. We made it a continual effort because things change but at the moment we have a choice of four places within 25 minutes of town. The group is observing/imaging only, with regular meet ups for a beer. It will never be a big established society like others but we don't want that. We kept it small, friendly observing only. The group members donate £3 a year to the running of the web site. Maybe if you can find some like minded souls locally and do something similar?

[Stub Mandrel]

Ok, I was wondering if we could have a topic like classifieds where you could suggest sites or ask where might be good place in an area, but I'll have a try.