PST80 does the Gravity Star Party

[NickH]

This weekend saw the first UK Gravity star party, which commemorated and celebrated the life of a really great UK astronomer in our good mate Dave Mahoney, who sadly passed away last year. He was passionate about all aspects of astronomy, and was getting in to solar imaging at the time of his untimely death.

It was as if the Sun put on a great show for him today.. and we were all thinking of you Dave at various points..

Anyway, here's some shots taken at the event, PST80 at F25 for the HA shots at F10 ish for the Cak one. More data still to process, but that big prom was something else to view and image. A group of truly great to meet astro guys from the this and the UKAI forum attended, and thanks guys for making the day really great..

The expletives used to describe the views through the PST80 were and are unprintable here (i.e good!)...but one quote does stick...

"the live view you get is better than my processed data"...by a certain magazine person.. :-)

High winds and clouds buffeting the scope all day, and we were dodging sleet and rain storms in between views.. The seeing was ok in the morning to average in the afternoon, but with clouds literally in waves coming over

As I hope they all saw, this setup works...and works very well...

Expect to see some serious activity on the second hand PST market.. :-)

Skynyx 2-0m, PST80, Vixen A80MF, Televue 2.5X powermate (H-A)

No ERF on the CaK module, and again, as people actually felt, it was stone cold after pointing at the Sun for a good while...Thanks Bern for the superb research into that dichroic filter, it works SOOOOO well

[Beyond_Vision]

Wow Nick they are simply stunning the surface granulation detail and prominances are amazing. A fitting tribute to your friends memory.

Regards

Kevin

[Imahumanbeing]

SPECTACULAR!!!!! Absolutely brilliant pictures!

[Dangerous-Dave]

Amazing shots Nick. The Cak shot is particularly good, I expect I will see that in a magazine very soon! I would be pleased with those from the home observatory/back garden, never mind in the field where this stuff is always twice as much hassle!

[NickH]

Seems like they made the front and back cover of the new BAA handbook.. so I am happy, as it keeps Dave's memory alive..