Star Party New Zealand

[moondog]

As promised a few more details and links to a few pics.

Nelson AS Star Party – Cissy Bay. 26 – 27 September 2008

About a dozen of us had a great weekend at Cissy Bay in the Marlborough Sounds. As a visitor from the UK it was my first Kiwi Star Party and it was certainly a memorable one.

The weekend was spent at John Bottomley’s ‘Seventh Heaven’ guest house at Cissy Bay off the French Pass. John was originally from Lancashire in the UK, while I am from just over the Pennines in Yorkshire. It’s certainly a small world!

We all arrived as dusk was falling and, since the sky was clear there was a rush to get the scopes’ up and running. The Milky Way and Jupiter were a fine sight when it dropped dark. There was very little wind. Martin and myself seemed to spend a large part of the evening (unsuccessfully as it happens) trying to get the C8 mount to perform as it should. A bit of TLC in the day light on Sunday by Martin and Paul seemed to solve the problem.There were some good views of Jupiter, particularly with the little 3" reflector. I managed to take one of my best ever widefield views of the Milky Way in the area of Scorpius with just a camera on a photo tripod. High cloud came in about midnight when most went for a sleep. A few brave souls got up at 3-30 am and had reasonably clear skies until dawn.

Saturday morning was cloudy and some went for a walk around the bay. A couple went fishing. In the evening we had a BBQ, cooking the fish and mussels that had been caught earlier. The rain poured down non-stop! So we all got comfy with our food and drinks and watched movies. One was the interesting, ‘Seeing in the Dark’ by Timothy Ferris, about amateur astronomers in the USA. The background music was by Mark Knopfler. We had an early night in the hopes of it clearing later on.

The sky cleared completely before 2.00am Sunday morning and a very few intrepid souls, including myself, set their scopes up. The sky was the darkest, clearest one I have seen for a very long time. Orion shone brightly in the East and was the first candidate for everyone’s scopes, and in my case, camera. I have never seen Orion so dominant in the sky, even though to a northern hemisphere observer he was standing on his head!

There was an excited cry from Rudy that he could see the Horse Head nebula. Even with a 16" Dob and a quality sky it’s usually impossible to see. I had a look through Rudy’s 16" Dob and as I gently moved the the scope I could see the dark horse’s neck and head. It was on its side with the nose pointing vertically upwards. An incredible sight and one I know I’ll be lucky to see again. It was starting to get light when we crept back to bed.

I also had great views of M42, the Tarantula Nebula and the Keyhole Nebula through Paul’s 12" dob. Even my 2 ½" Apo gave me a view of M42 which would be the same as through my 4" refractor under most skies.

In the morning at breakfast we made sure the rest knew we’d had the best sky of the weekend!

On Sunday we also did a bit of daytime viewing of the stars and planets with Rudy’s scope. To be able to split Alpha Centauri at noon on a sunny day is quite something

There were a wide range of telescopes from a 2 ½" refractor, through 3", 8", 12" and 16" Newts to an 8" SCT.

In summary we had a brilliant Star Party with good skies. John Bottomley looked after us well at his place on beautiful Cissy Bay.

My first Kiwi Star Party, but hopefully not my last.

I have put some photos of the Star Party scopes and people, together with some astro images I’ve taken whilst in NZ, on this website :- http://www.flickr.com/photos/30972595@N03/ In the BBQ pic, I'm the one shucking mussels in the Chef's hat!

MD

[Kai]

Right im off to sell a child , see you in a few weeks

Looks a fantastic location and sounds like you had a great time , who could ask for more from a Star Party.

[centroid]

A nice report John, and photos to go with it

Glad that despite the varaible weather, you all had a great time, and even managed a visual on the 'horsehead'.

That scenery is something else, beautiful!!

Its now almost certain that I'll be heading out to the ASWA 'star party', about three hours drive out into the 'bush' from Perth.

Just hope the sky will be clear, as the Moon will be nicely out of the way.

Dave

[moondog]

Dave

Hope you have clear skies if you manage to get to the ASWA Star Party - enjoy!

8)

MD