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SGL6 - Chat Thread

Helen

By Helen
in SGL 6 The Aftermath

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malc-c

malc-c

Posted
Posted

Had booked for three nights but chose to come home a day early as like Rob I'm comming down with a cold or something and felt a bit rough. The 155 mile return journey took me just over under 4 hours which is the penalty for sticking to a more direct route and having to use A roads.

Can I just say that I had a wonder full couple of days / nights and have come away with lots of inspiration and ideas... I would like to give thanks to Helen, Daz, Steve and the rest of the crew that orgainsed the event and even though I didn't take to camping too well, hope to be at SGL7 next year :)

One of the team (possibly Kev - sorry I'm very forgetful of names and faces) came round taking shots of those who attend on Friday night and said they would be uploaded somewhere - anyone got a link to these pictures?

Lastly, thanks to Pete for the beer last night... next time I'll bring a few fosters for you as you didn't like the dark mild I had B) For those who are staying another night, lets hope its a hatrick !

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shaunster

shaunster

Posted
Posted
Is SGL6 still on? Was thinking of popping along with the scope for a few hours tonight.

I've messaged Helen but not had a reply - can I just turn up (before dark obviously..) ?

Yes mate im sure that will be fine, some people are staying until monday :)

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AWR

AWR

Posted
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Just got home after an amazing first star party. It was great to get an opportunity to use my dob, and my list of Messier objects has grown substantially (still totting up).

Thanks to Helen and all of the other organisers for a wonderful event. Thanks also to Peter and Kev who were fighting over who was going to give me a free solar filter, and again to Peter who let me have a go with his 70-200L and 24-105L. Thanks too to James for his Catseye collimation masterclass.

Andrew

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mdstuart

mdstuart

Posted
Posted

Just home after a great weekend. Everyone so friendly, my two boys had a great time with Rees and others...

Its a great site with mag 5.5+ skies in most directions and to quite low declanations.

I took my baby dob 76mm and my binos 80mm with the aim of seeing what could be done in a dark skies site.

Well last night I managed to observe this list from 10 to 12pm.

Galaxies

M81,82,101,108,109,106,51,63,94,95,96,105,66,65,102,87,58,60,49,64,104,31,32..

Plus

NGC2403,2683,3077,2841,4490,4449,3384,3521,2903,3115,5005,3628,1023.

All less than mag 10.2..

Clusters

M35,36,37,38,34,45,44,67,48,93,50,46,47,41,52 and NGC1907,884,869.

Nebulas M42,78,97,1,76 and the Eskimo

Globs..M3,53,68 I think....

It could have been higher but I got a bit lost in Virgo and went to bed before the Summer constellations were up.:)

My observations indicate a limiting magnitude of 11.4 in the 80mm equipment visually. This compares to 10.2 at home so a full magnitude better at SGL6..

I also enjoyed spending some time looking at galaxies on the screen from a video camera on a refractor...the coma cluster looked like the screen had an error and lots of grey splodges had appeared:icon_eek:. I want one of those cameras!

Whilst M81/82 looks fine in my baby dob the best view of this was in Daz 12 inch scope withe a nagler lens..just awesome.B)

Thanks to all the organisers for putting on such a professional event...

Mark from Bristol

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Hypernova

Hypernova

Posted
Posted

I had a great weekend overall, the weather wasn't playing ball all the the time and the neighbours on the hill were just annoying B) but I had a good look up on Saturday night and saw a few new objects. Not as many as I thought I would though, no massive Messier Marathon here but I upped one on the M catalog and a couple of NGC galaxies.

The highlight though was observing the distant quasar 3c273 in Virgo, 2 billion years distant and shining bright at mag 12.8, barely detectable in the 8" but definitely there after double checking with stellarium and the larger 300p that was a few tents down from me.

I ended up succumbing to temptation and buying the c100ed that was sitting on FLO's stall at the jumble, I have no real long term plans for it but I wanted it :grin: I will get some new tube rings and plop it on my EQ3-2 for now and start saving for a beefier mount. It needs a star diagonal and a RA finder really so if anyone has one spare I'd be pleased, must be cheap though as I am spent up, got to send £150 in payment when FLO get back to their offices.

I also bought a 7mm UO ortho from JohnManson, it performed well in the 'frac but didn't get a chance to try it in the dob because of heavy dewing last night. I didn't observe at all through the dob as everything was dewed up very early and I wasn't really up to oobserving at all, the sleeping bag was calling at 12 ;)

Roll on next year :p:)

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mdstuart

mdstuart

Posted
Posted

Should be clear at least for the pre midnight session. The next weather system is likely to show itself in high cloud after midnight and certainly by the early hours.

All the indications are for milder air to return from Thursday with high pressure lining up a lovely weekend. Still no rain though which is now desperately needed. The new set up of weather post 2007 continues...

Bristol Climate Change

Regards

Mark Stuart

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Photosbykev

Photosbykev

Posted
Posted

a few pics from last night

M45 - 20 x 15sec, 30sec, 60sec and 120sec @ 800 iso through a 600mm Canon lens

M45.jpgm45.jpg

M106 and adjacent galaxies, a single stack of 20 x 4 minute subs

M106.jpg

m106.jpg

processed in PixInsight in the tent while the heavens opened.

The camp field is looking quite empty but the hardy folk are still here.

or is that the daft optimistic ones? :)

I'm seeing some banding on the 5D MkII which has me puzzled at the moment

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noakesy

noakesy

Posted
Posted

well my first star party and had a great time , learnt loads of new things ,saw loads , some people with all the kit ,amazing what it takes to get a photos , even bought another scope, thanks to all who helped me and to the organizers . looking forwardto next yr already.

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rowan46

rowan46

Posted
Posted

i just wanted to add my thanks to helen and the team who organised sgl6 I knew from reading the forum what a lovely bunch of people were on here, having met some of them only confirms that to be so, I am so looking forward to next year.

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G2EWS

G2EWS

Posted
Posted

Hi All,

Still here with the die hards. Been a great few days with all the help and advice and so many people to thank. All the organisers including Helen and MikeP. All the people who came over to give me the benefit of their experience including Sarah and Luke next door, without whom I would still be trying to find my first star to set up the mount :)

After speaking with Ian (Ibbo), the other side of me I took his advice and put my camera on the scope and started taking photos. Turned out I was not set up properly. A little out to Polaris and hence a bit smudgy. Took 15 x 30 second images. Joined in Deep Sky Staker and then tweaked in Photoshop CS5. Sadly I cannot run Focus Magic on my CS5 as it is a newer Macbook Pro. Never mind.

This is my first image from my third time of looking through any scope, let alone my own scope. So I am chuffed to bits.

If the weather is good to us tonight I hope to do a better job.

OrionNebualfromTIFFFilePS.jpg

Best regards

Chris

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George

George

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Got back 2 hours ago, had a great weekend and a big thanks to Helen, MikeP and everyone else who made the weekend possible. After a couple of months in the doldrums this weekend has rekindled the astrobug :)

Big thanks also to Peter (Physcobilly) for lending me a lens for the 1000D so I could do some widefield shots. Great to see Ron there this year, RobH, Amanda & Nelson, plus everyone else I met and chatted to.

Roll on SGL7

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Astrosurf

Astrosurf

Posted
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I am soooooo glad I managed to make the Saturday night! It was lovely seeing you all again and yet another cracking job by the organisers! The BBQ was great. Thank you all!

Thanks so much for Pete (!) and Ian and others for helping me out with my twitchy scope. If it hadn't have been for Adam I would have gone to bed in tears! But never give up, never surrender. 'Tis a dark art this!

I managed to get Messiers 81, 82, 42 and, I think, 3. I was very happy with M42 at it was low on the horizon and almost behind Ian's scope!

I have been having a lot of bother with what seems like coma. Can anyone help?

Also, I couldn't see Saturn at all through my Barlow with webcam. Very disappointed. Does anyone know why?

Here are my pics (cropped and put through Photoshop).

EDIT - oops! Should have been jpeg. I'll try again in a separate post under Aftermath! Didn't get much sleep last night!

Alexxx

Orion's Nebula Stacked adj r.tif

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malc-c

malc-c

Posted
Posted

Chris.. don't put yourself down... it was hard to polar align if you left it too late as Polaris got lost in so many stars ! That's a cracking image, with a nice dark background... (I'm just looking at the shots I took with my Olympus 500 and there's so many hot pixels and amp glow it's looks as if I took them from a town centre !)

You're doing well.. hope you lot have nice clear skies tonight

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Darth Takahashi

Darth Takahashi

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Managed to get over for a couple of hours on Sunday morning....great to meet up with the few that were still hanging around.... i have to say thanks to Matt who made my wife and I a killer sausage and egg butty :)

it was nice to meet you Peter and share food as well as imaging tips.

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