A brief stargazing session at AstroCamp

[DirkSteele]

Mother Nature certainly knows how to antagonise astronomers. After almost a week of glorious blue skies, the forecast for AstroCamp this past weekend was not great. Clouds did roll in over blue skies on Saturday late afternoon. Chances of some stargazing looked slight. However, I decided to trust one outlier forecast (thank you Accuweather) and was treated to 2 hrs of cloudless skies from about 2am to 4am on Monday morning. Sadly missed by almost everyone at the camp.

Given the soggy weather yesterday, I was able to write up the session immediately and is on the link below.

 

http://alpha-lyrae.co.uk/2019/09/24/a-brief-stargazing-session-at-the-autumn-2019-astrocamp/

 

Hope you enjoy it. Feedback always appreciated.

[mark81]

That was a very enjoyable able read.  It's always amazing to hear what details can be pulled from objects with good skies, a good scope and some decent EPs... And of course a bit of skill.....

Some great objects there - many of which never get old - the clusters in Cassiopeia and Auriga being top of the list.

Nice report.

Mark

[RobertI]

Lovely report, the screenshots were a nice addition. APMs and Televues - sounds like heavenly observing equipment to me! You did really well to find the Veil and the Flame on a moonlit night. 👍

[DirkSteele]

On 24/09/2019 at 18:47, mark81 said:

That was a very enjoyable able read.  It's always amazing to hear what details can be pulled from objects with good skies, a good scope and some decent EPs... And of course a bit of skill.....

Some great objects there - many of which never get old - the clusters in Cassiopeia and Auriga being top of the list.

Nice report.

Mark

Thanks. Glad you enjoyed reading it.

[DirkSteele]

2 hours ago, RobertI said:

Lovely report, the screenshots were a nice addition. APMs and Televues - sounds like heavenly observing equipment to me! You did really well to find the Veil and the Flame on a moonlit night. 👍

The Flame Nebula in particular was a huge surprise as the Moon was in Gemini so not far away. Fortunately Cygnus was on the other side of the sky and hence not being impacted anywhere near the same degree. UHC is definitely very helpful though. I suspect without would have been far more difficult.

[RobertI]

9 hours ago, DirkSteele said:

The Flame Nebula in particular was a huge surprise as the Moon was in Gemini so not far away. Fortunately Cygnus was on the other side of the sky and hence not being impacted anywhere near the same degree. UHC is definitely very helpful though. I suspect without would have been far more difficult.

Thumbs up for the UHCs. I have a Baader UHCE (economy) filter for use in scopes of 5” and less, works really well in my 130P, thinking that a UHC would be even better though. 

[Whistlin Bob]

Wow- that's lots of targets for a short session. A very enjoyable read- thank you!

[DirkSteele]

Thanks. I felt like I was on borrowed time from the start so I was certainly speeding around the sky. Fortunately pretty good at star hopping but I spent less time with each object than I otherwise might have.