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Aussie 'Bush' astro camp


centroid

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Oh wow!!!, what an experience :lol:

This weekend was the local astro society's astro camp, held out under the dark skies of the Western Australian 'Bush'.

I really thougth that it was going to be clouded/rained out, as that was the forecast. The camp ran from Friday p.m. to Sunday.

It rained very heavily, and I mean heavily, on and off all day friday, and through most of the night. However, Saturday morning dawned dry, bright but very cloudy.

So, I decided to make the 2.5 hours drive inland just to meet the guys and gals, and to see how their astro camps function down here. I was fully expecting to be heading back to the coast before dark, as there seemed no chance of the cloud clearing.

As the afternoon went on, the heavy cloud started to break up, as you can see in the picture below. As if by magic, before the Sun had 'hit' the horizon, the cloud just melted away :cheers: .

Needless to say, I stayed there, and my goodness, was I 'gob smacked' as the sky darkened. and the stars started to 'switch on'.

As it got darker, I thought I was seeing two small clouds still remaining. I was right, they were indeed two clouds, but not the sort I was thinking of, they were the two Magellenic Clouds !! :shock: :lol: . I'd seen them through the binos, from my daughter's house in town, but these were now unmissable naked eye objects.

The Milky Way, was like I'd never seen it before, and I was looking right towards the galactic centre in Sagittarius, what an experience!! :shock: :D .

Although it was such a dark location, early on, we had problems with some light pollution :D . Would you believe, that the source of this light pollution was Venus, and with dark adapted eyes, we were able see our way around the field, by it's light. It even cast shadows !!! :shock: .

Unfortunately, Venus was just below Sagittarius, and the Milky Way, so it had some degrading effect on my pictures, and by the time Venus had 'set', the Milky Way was very low on the horizon.

There were a good number of scopes there, up to 18", and I was treated to views through most all of them. In fact, everyone one was really keen for 'Pommy Dave' (there was another Dave there) to have a look through their scope. This list of objects that I viewed was just so extensive, and the views through the big scopes, was 'mind blowing'.

I couldn't have been in the company of a nicer bunch of people, SGL people excluded of course :D , and it was an evening which I will cherish for a very long time to come.

The non-astro highlights were, that during the afternoon, large flocks of Ring Necked Parrots, and Black Cockatoos, landed in the field around us, to feed on the ground. Then, as dusk fell, around a dozen Kangaroos came out of the 'Bush', to see what we were up to :D .

I left the camp, just after midnight, for the 2.5 hour drive back. I was warned to watch out for Kangaroos, leaping across the road, as apparently they can do an awful lot of damage to a car :) .

The drive back was indeed somewhat scary, as I encountered no less than eleven Kanagaroos, either at the side of the road, in the road, bounding out of the 'bush' in front of me. When one of these guys, suddenly appears in the headlights, having bounced out of the trees, its pretty scary, believe me.

It took me over three hours to get back, as I was so wary of driving at anything much above 40 mph, and by the time I did get back, my eyes were really tired, after staring so hard for Kangaroos.

Below, a some photos:

The clearing in the 'bush', an example of the Aussie 'bush', and a couple of sky 'shot's:

The Milky Way, at the Galactic centre (Sagittarius) (the big "star" is Jupiter), and the two Magellenic Clouds. These are both just single 30 second shots, at f/4, ISO1600, with the Canon 30D, mounted on a tripod.

Dave

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Oh thanks Dave you have cheered me up no end now :) whats the milky way , hey i can see 10 stars here at my location , oh what i would give to see something like that though, you are sooo lucky .and 30 sec shots blimey they knock spots of what i have seen taken here of the milky way, just goes to show , dark skies , mega images, and we thought Kelling was good LOL .

Oh well think i will retire to Aus then

Rog

Even more fed up now

:D

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Great report Dave - after all the worries you got a super dark sky (apart from Venus!)

Excellent widefield images of Scorpius and the Small & Large MC's.

Glad you enjoyed the drive back -missing all those jumping 'Roos must have been fun. On my 2 hour drive back from the SP in New Zealand I only had to look out for the odd bunny - very boring!

8)

MD

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Well, now I know why you keep going back to Oz. Dave. Of course the family connection goes without saying, but how good are those skies. I expected the S&L Magellanic clouds to be a bit more obscure than that. Wonderful pictures mate, you must have had a great time at that bush location, and even taking into account the hairy ride home, I'm sure you would do it again.

Thanks for sharing the experience with us. :thumbright:

Ron. :)

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All I can say Ron, is that I've not before been to a dark sky location, and suffered light pollution from Venus :) .

As for going again, I've already booked my place at the Spring camp, in Feb 2010, but this time I'll be staying overnight, and not driving back through the 'bush' in the dark :) .

Have also been invited to go to one of their "Seriously Deep Sky Camps", which are held some 400 km inland, REALLY deep into 'bush land'.

Its difficult to imagine darker skies than where I was on Saturday night, but they assure me they are :shock: .

I have to say, that if I hadn't seen it for myself, I wouldn't have believed it, but on Saturday night I was shown a very faint dome of light on the north eastern horizon. This was apparently from the City of Perth 160 km away :shock: .

If it hadn't been pointed out to me, I probably wouldn't have noticed it, but it was most definitely there.

Dave

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I look forward to your account of that experience Dave. just 15 months or so away, not long at all.

Might be worth acquiring an Astrotrac to take with you. Stick an ZS66 on it, you will get some great stuff with

that, and not too heavy to pack either. :)

Cheers mate.

Ron. :)

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