| Equinox Sky Camp 2001 |
The 7th Equinox Sky camp 14-15th September 2001
This year we had Tim Duke accompanied by his brother Simon in a borrowed caravan. Tim had a tow ball fitted to his car especially for the trip. Jim Vincent in his caravan, on his own this year that meant we had to manage without Pat’s splendid chips. Ted Rodway in his trusty motor home with awning. Andy Turner with his caravan with Ron Mansfield lodging, they travelled separately to avoid travelling time complications. Dave Smith in his tent. Brian Boggenpoel in his splendid 4-wheeler caravan up the posh end with electric hook up no less. Lastly yours truly with Brendan Murphy as guest in my caravan.
We were pretty much in the same place we have occupied in previous years except for Tim & Simon who arrived early and set up nearer the edge of the field and Brian who as mentioned above needed power for his gear. Dave Smith tried to bunk in without doing the honourable thing & paying for his pitch but Mike Cook (organiser) got his own back by making Dave move his already pitched tent by about 1 yard further away from Jim’s set-up, something to do with fire regs. we think. However Dave is definitely not complaining, far from it, he enjoyed it so much he has vowed to return, in fact it will be a regular fixture in his diary.
Equipment :-The organised part of the weekend begins with the Astro boot fair. Jim got himself a gadget to hold his digital camera in front of the telescope eyepiece whilst Dave Smith got a plastic thingy for finding er things after you have set the date & time. (I think it’s called a Planisphere Dave. – Ed)
Then came the lectures, which cost £2.50 a ticket for all three. We trooped up as a mob to get ours to be told that they only issued 50 & they had few left. Luckily they had exactly enough for us with none left. What a result!
The lectures this year were Dr Stuart Clark talking about Life in the Universe, Bob Mizon on the Campaign for Dark Skies & Ken Harrison on Cosmology. All the talks were very informative & interesting although it must be said that the breaks between each were very welcome. Our old friend Gerry Workman introduced the speakers as usual. As an aside it was very interesting to see Dr Clark as we have him talking to us about Extra solar planets very shortly.
After the lectures the raffle is drawn. Everybody gathers in anticipation, discussing with enthusiasm what we will do when we win the star prize which this year was a very acceptable Meade ETX 70 telescope worth £300. It must be said that some of our regulars have in the past done unbelievably well in this field. This year however we were clearly in the wrong field. We didn’t win the star prize or the second which was 19 volumes of Astro books from the ‘Springer’ series or the third which was Astro software The Sky-version 4. However the fourth, which was a weekend for two at Maddog, Wales, was won by Simon who had earlier professed that he didn’t mind what he won as long as it wasn’t the Welsh holiday. We think he was secretly pleased. Then yours truly stepped into the limelight with my two pennorth. (This may be a conflict of terms because I’m not at all sure that it would be worth as much as two pence. Judge for yourselves.) When I picked it. Yes I chose it. I was fondly of the opinion that I had secured a CD rom Science encyclopaedia. However as I eagerly read the box to ascertain the details I realised that I was the proud fledgling owner of an encyclopaedia of science fiction. Well I’ve never been so under whelmed before. As my friends learned the happy news I was congratulated & offered several suggestions as to good uses to which this splendid object could be put. The printable ones varied from :- a raffle prize, a gift for someone you don’t like very much, a mat for stopping damage to furniture during the taking of refreshment. This was dismissed as stupid because you would have to bother to extricate it from its box which was understandably far too much trouble.
(Many thanks to Tim for details of the prizes & the snippet that he had collected the tickets for himself & Simon & had to decide which set to give his brother!!)
Shortly after this excitement we adjourned to the bar to have more beer & bully the bar staff to start serving the food earlier than the stated time, which they did. We proceeded to fill our faces with a varied selection of pub grub. Dave Smith eventually joined in when at long last he received his order. Andy who, last year, caused comment by having exactly the same meal on both evenings, namely chicken curry. This year he clearly didn’t want to repeat himself so he had chilli con carne. But then his will power deserted him & he did repeat himself & ordered it again, ate it & enjoyed it. The following night he had it again but insisted it was a different meal because he had it with chips. All on the Friday night. He’s only little, I think we should make this the subject of a club evening when we can debate where he puts it.
The weather that evening was very patchy which caused some problems with setting up, especially Ted who admitted to having forgotten some of the detail procedures for his LX. He was so tetchy he even refused a serving of sausage at about midnight. The seeing however fleeting was excellent through the holes we found and generally it was a good session. The second night was awful & most of us crammed into Andy’s van to drink coffee & beer & natter. Much like any Wednesday club night in fact. Some of us retired for the night soon after midnight. Jim got into trouble with Pat for not phoning her, she had to call me to get him to call her. Whilst attending to my ablutions I noted that it was beginning to clear and dutifully alerted the stalwarts still in Andy’s of this news, having decided myself that it was a false alarm I retired. I learnt in the morning that the night had been quite stunning with excellent skies until dawn.
Memories of the weekend:-
Andy: I was using a Celestron 8 inch
Schmidt-Cassegrain, which I did not bother to polar align. I contented myself with just a
rough alignment on the basis that I was not going to tempt fate by loading film into my
camera to do any photography. To do so would have guaranteed that the clouds would come
rolling in, and stay in. I decided I was just going to have a good old-fashioned look
around at this and that, so exact tracking was not too critical. One of my main objectives
was to try out the Telrad finder that I bought a few months ago and which I had not had an
opportunity to put through its paces up to then. I have to say I was very impressed and
can now understand the high level of enthusiasm for them expressed on many occasions by
Ron and others who have been using them for some time.
I also took the opportunity to thoroughly test the 80mm Opticron spotting scope that I
bought recently. It was bought primarily as a bird watching instrument but was from the
outset intended to have a secondary use as an Astro scope. I have to say that I was pretty
pleased with it. It obviously has its limitations, especially for Astro work. It suffers
from some chromatic aberration and of course it lacks light grasp. However, it does have
its advantages. For a start it is very portable and quickly mounted, so you can be up and
running in moments. It is also quite comfortable to use as refractors go because I bought
the version with the eyepiece mounted at 45 degrees. In conjunction with a tripod of the
same type as we bought for the club's giant bins, I found that viewing at altitudes right
up to the zenith could be done without dislocating my neck in the process - compare with
getting under binoculars at such angles! Another advantage is that everything is the right
way round and the right way up! In particular this has the potential to do wonders for my
Lunar geography. It was also a bit strange to see, for example, the Trapezium asterism
oriented as it really is. The only eyepiece I bought for it is a 27 times to 80 times zoom
which, in conjunction with the scopes other attributes, makes for a very useful and
versatile instrument.
There were numerous moments of amusement over the weekend. One of the best being the time
several of us spent in my caravan on Saturday evening while Tim probed our knowledge - or
should I say, lack of it - by plucking all sorts of obscure questions from my Collins
Dictionary of Astronomy, which will henceforth and for ever be referred to as a Dictomy!
Sadly, there is no way I could tell this tale that would make it half as amusing as it was
at the time. (Nuff said I think)
There are two abiding memories of the weekend that will linger in my mind for a long time.
The first was the sight of the Milky Way as I stepped out of my caravan once the clouds
had cleared on the Saturday. It was downright stunning. I have certainly never ever seen
it better and I am not sure that I have ever seen it as good. The other memory is of the
view of the Veil Nebula through Dave's (or was it Jim's or was it both) O3 filter. Such a
clear and detailed view of a gaseous nebula other than the Orion Nebula was quite awe
inspiring in a manner that was comparable to my first ever view of anything through an
Astro scope. That first ever view was of the Ring Nebula through a 12 inch Dob, which is
an introduction to observational astronomy that is pretty well guaranteed to result in a
sharp intake of breath. Well, this my first ever view of the Veil Nebula from anywhere and
through any instrument, was in that category. Unforgettable.
Dave Smith: I took pictures of the Sun with a
Coolpix 880 digital camera through my
80mm Swarovski birding scope (with Baadar solar filter)
I also took some Jupiter pics through the VC200L which can be seen on my website.
The highlights of the observing for me were:
Seeing the Milky way so clearly.
Observing familiar objects but so much clearer
(e.g. M57, M31,
M32, M110, M27, various planetary nebulas, M81, M82 etc)
Seeing M33 for the first time through a
telescope
Seeing structure in the Veil Nebula.
Ron’s advised his highlights were observing the sun for over 4 hours.
Also seeing:- M31 Andromeda galaxy for its full 5 degrees and seeing spiral
arms with dust lanes, NGC 7000 North American Nebula without filters including Pelican Nebula. He noted that a UHC filter improved the contrast.Ron emphasised that this was the first time he had had this level of seeing through his equipment.
Ted : I had waited two years for 'Thetford 2001' Last year I was away at the date of the astro meet and missed the opportunity to try out my recently acquired camper van purchased for just such an occasion. I determined to make the most of this years meeting and left little of my astro equipment at home.
I loaded my Vixen GPDX mount armed with the SS2K software on which to mount the 94mm Brandon refractor and guide scope. For use on the same mount I took my 6" Newtonian with its mounting rings adapted to fit the Vixen mount. I also took my Meade LX200 7" Maksutov adapted to take the guide scope or have my dedicated 500mm lens piggy backed. Accessories included my SBIG4 auto guider, 2 Nikon and 1 Pentax camera bodies, various Nikon lenses and all the usual 'bits that go with them. Not to miss the opportunity I took my 'R2D2' (the box on wheels that houses my CCD frame store), the laptop,TV monitor and control leads.
Then there was the film. Kodak Elite Chrome 200 and 400 for the colour and hypered Tech Pan 2415 to try some black & white. Add to this the clothing, food, toiletries and 'this might be useful' things that may be needed for a 6 day stay and the camper van was loaded to the roof.
I arrived on the Friday afternoon to find that the preferred location for our group was already taken so 'Cookie' led me to the area of the bottom field that we had used on previous years. Mike Cook has progressed to using a small, ancient, motorised velocipede to assist him in directing arriving astronomers to their pitches. This does wonders for Mikes well being but nothing for the last years of his transport. Tim had arrived early that morning and got himself into the preferred position but, alas, others had filled the adjoining spaces so I stayed where I was to await the arrival of the rest of the gang.
The 'gang' duly arrived and we set up the CPAC village (with Tim as an outlying member and Brian languishing in electrified luxury in the upper field) and prepared for the night. It was cloudy that evening so we adjourned to the bar for drinks and an evening meal.
The weather pattern for the previous few days had been cloudy bright during the day, cloudy in the evening and clearing a little after midnight. As I remember, Friday night was disappointing and an early night was had.
Saturday was the BIG day with the site full of visitors and trade stalls. A late breakfast of egg, bacon and sausages in the bar was followed by visits to the trade stands. The highlight for me was meeting faces from previous years. This even included a face from Hawaii when I went there, with my wife and the Seal twins, to see the 1991 eclipse. Our group attended the talks which were well presented and interesting. It proved difficult to stay awake in the dim lighting and the three talks were spaced rather too close together (15 minutes apart) so that we opted to miss the last talk in preference to visiting the trade stands. Back to the bar in the evening for dinner and then preparation for the coming night.
Good views were had of various objects and even faint nebula. One such view was of parts of NGC 7000, the North American nebula, when mottling was visible with and without a nebula filter. There was much to-ing and fro-ing between scopes to share views and equipment. A good night was had by all and bedtime came only with the dawn.
Sunday saw us having a late breakfast, by which time some of our group had already left the site to go home. I was staying for the week, perhaps, so I mooched about seeing off my friends and hoping for good weather to come.
Sunday evening was a repeat of Saturday and started to clear after midnight. Despite the very high humidity I prepared to shoot some colour of NGC 7000 using the Elite Chrome 200. This was to compliment some B/W images I had taken previously and I needed a colour set to try some co-adding. Setting up the scope was achieved with little fuss. I found my target, framed half of my target area and proceeded to find myself a suitable guide star for the SBIG4 auto guider. Finding and centring a suitable guide star is not always easy. I spent some frustrating minutes watching the numbers displayed by the ST4 go up, down and I swear sideways, before I realised that I had lost the guide star behind a storm cloud! Then there was a wind in the trees that was a prelude to the downpour that followed seconds later. That had been the best of the weather for me for the rest of the week.
I stayed through to the Thursday morning in the hope that the weather might improve but it did not. In fact it got progressively worse and I now know where not to set-up your tent in that field if you want to avoid the need for wellies. See Me there next year!
These last words were penned by Andy at the end of his note to me. I believe it to be extremely eloquent & certainly share the sentiments unreservedly, therefore it is included for all:-
I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all of those who went to Thetford, for the part you all played in making my weekend a thoroughly enjoyable one. It simply would not have been the same without you all.
Site details:-
Dower House Touring park Tel. 01953 717314
East Harling
Thetford
Norfolk NR16 2SE
The pitch fee per night regardless of persons is now £7.50. A rise of £0.50 over last year.
The organiser is Mike Cook of the Loughton Astronomical Society Tel. 0961 832827