A Night At Kielder Observatory.

[ZOG]

Well I've just got back from a cracking night at Kielder observatory, and never got to observe anything. Being me I got my timings all wrong and arrived at about 4:15pm. I thought something was amiss as I was driving up the hill and cars were coming down. Anyhow I drove into the car park, there was 1 other car there but no one about. I wandered around and as I was standing on a bench to read some rather high notices on the notice board, a door opened and a bloke popped his head out and said hello. The "bloke" turned out to be none other than Gary Fildes the "resident" astronomer. He explained that the observatory was closed but recommended me to come back at 8 for the days event. I told him I had drove up from Newcastle so doing a return round trip wasn't on I also told him I had the scope in the car and was hoping to get some collimation tips. His response was "right, get it out" and wandered off, I set the scope up and he reappeared and helped me to carry it into the observatory where he got out a laser collimator and had the scope set up in 10 minutes. :hello1:

Gary then gave me a tour of the obs, (christ I never knew how big a 14" LX200 was) but for me the highlight was the 20" Pulsar truss dob in the larger observatory (there are 2).

Gary then invited me to come down to Kielder village to meet "some of the guys" sorry lads I forgot your names already :mrgreen: . We went back to the observatory about half past seven, talk about dark, but of course there was thick cloud and even a few snowflakes !!!

By 8:15 the "classroom" was packed, mainly by members of the general public, and Gary began his talk on "Kielder observatory and the big universe". This was informative and witty, Gary is a great speaker and doesn't try to overwhelm you with big numbers.

At the end of the talk there should have been an observing session but due to the cloud this was only an observatory tour, followed by coffee and a chance to ask questions.

Kielder is a research grade observatory, they specialise in exo planets, but as Gary explained the breakdown is about 20% research, and 80% bringing astronomy to the public.

The Kielder observatory is a tremendous assett and has no public funding. Membership is only £15.00 a year, and even if you only manage to get there once a year it is £15.00 well spent

I started out by saying I had a cracking night. I met some really nice people, gained a bit more knowledge, actually explained some things to some folk and let them examine my scope.

If the sky is clear next time I go, it wil be awesome.

Details of the observatory can be seen at, http://www.kielderobservatory.org/

[daz]

Great report ZOG!

Hope you get some views next time you go. Only managed to see the outside so far....

[Mick.G.]

I hope to get there some day.

Nice report.

Mick.G.