Kielder suumary

Just to add, the Friday night was also clear from dusk till dawn, and again
quite cold later on.

All in all a super event this time with lots of clear, dark, and very
transparent skies :-).

I've attached a short report I worte for our York AS forum below for those
who are interested to read.


Clear, dark skies.

Paul B, York, UK.

__________________________________________________ ___
Hi All,

Well, I'm just back from 5 nights at Kielder up in the remote borders
region, and I can tell you all that the Spring 2008 Star Camp was a
resounding success.

We had a totally clear Friday night, dusk till dawn, and a cold and clear
Saturday night from 10pm onwards, and even clear skies on Sunday/Monday
night from 2am onwards for those who braved the late hours after the snow
storms finished.

All in all an excellent Kielder with almost too much clear sky of a very
high quality. I'm talking dark and good trasparency, showing clear spiral
arms in M51 with 8" scopes!!! All the old hands were there and the food in
the Angler's Arms was up to it's usual high standard with my choice being
mainly Steak & Kidney pie, Haddock, and Kashmir Lamb Shank (on several
occasions).

On the Friday night I did observational work and decided not to image. I
was able to get the mount aligned early on while the sky was still quite
light and almost totally devoid of clouds. Sirius popped into view and was
the first alignment star followed by Arcturus, then Capella. The mount
worked very well, and while the sky was light I was getting great views of
Saturn at 120x, 160x and 225x. Later on when true darkness had arrived I
was touring all the Messier and NGC galazies in Leo and Coma Berenices. I
also observed some planetary nebula and was rewarded with super views of the
Cat's eye nebula. The brighter objects such as M3 and M13 were shown to
great advantage by the dark and very transparent conditions. I was easily
able to observe the small galaxy NGC6207 next to M13 as a clear elongated
smudge. M51, the whirlpool galaxy, was showing clear spiralicity in my, and
other 8" scopes. Through bigger 10" and 12" scopes it was a clear spiral
even with direct vision. Saturday night was again clear from 10pm opnwards,
and this time I took the time to look through other scopes and enjoy new
objects. It was a little too cold to think about imaging, and after calling
it a night we awoke to some scattered snow on Sunday morning. Sunday night
was marked by snow storms and freezing temperatures, for which our fan
heater was very much appreciated, but it did clear at 2am unitl dawn, and
some brave hardy souls did observe, but I have to admit I was fast asleep by
then.

The Saturday daytime event was good with excellent talks and some vendors to
peruse (although it is on a much smaller scale event than the Autumn event).
I bought a very nice red dot finder (William Optics) for my 80mm Apo, but
thankfully I managed to resist the other "bargains", such as a new EQ6 Pro
Go-to mount, for £820 as a Kielder special price, (normally £849 and a
bargain at that even). One of the talks was given by Gian Lee from the
Huddersfield AS and was about observing objects with a different approach.
It was based on distance and started with the near stuff, with which we are
all familar, then moved out further from Earth to some quite large
distances. It's a great talk and I may ask Gain if we can book him for our
2009 season, or maybe the YAS AGM in October. At the end of the talk an
observing list was handed out, and I intend to work my way through it,
starting with the closest, and working up to the farthest away object.
Somne of these distant objects are very faint, and need dark skies, very
well dark adapted eyes, and as large a scope as you can beg steal or borrow,
but are achievable. I have actually already been fortunate to observe the
farthest object on a previous visit to Kielder through Gain's very nice18"
Dobsonian telescope, so that's the hardest one I can tick off, although I'd
like to observe it again myself.

Once you start to reach the faint distant stuff, the fact is that most of
these objects have been photographically catalogued, and many have maybe
never been observed visually by anyone before. Just think, you could be the
first person to actually see some of these objects! Most of them simply
don't have finder charts as they are too faint, and you have to make your
own charts out of a combination of skymap s/w and images from the Deep Sky
Survey photographs, etc, available on the Internet, and work your way to the
target via the charts and star fields in the images. Real detective work
astronomy, and so satisfying when you find your intended faint target, even
if it is at the limit of human observing capability.

TV crews were there doing a bit for Country File (National) and Inside & Out
(which is a regional BBC North program). Michael (my young son) and I were
interviewed on camera by Maggie Philbin as we were setting up on Friday
evening, although I don't know if it will make it into the finished piece.
She was very nice, and wearing well for her age. After she and the producer
thanked us for our contribution, I did say it was nice to finally meet her
after all these years :-). The implication being that like most males of my
age, we had a slight crush on her from her "Swap Shop" and "Tomorrow's
World" days :-).

We packed up in a lovely snow scape this morning (Monday), after several
hours of wind blown snow storms last night (before the sky cleared at 2am).
I was too tired for any observing after the previous 2 clear nights, so an
early night was in order. I managed to get the trailer tent packed and
hitched by about 9am, and after a hot choc in the Duke's Pantry, we headed
off. The new car did 39.1 mpg for the whole trip, home to Kielder to home,
which is great going for a fully loaded 7 seat vehicle towing a trailer
tent.

All in all it was a fantastic break for Michael and I. We did lots of
walking around the Kielder area, enjoyed the food in the local pub, and got
some great observing in with like minded people and friends. It would have
been good to have had more folk from York AS there this time, but hopefully,
some will book up for the Autumn event which runs from 29th October to 2nd
November this year. By then the new Kielder Observatory will be open and
operating with a 14" and 20" scope available for use :-).

I've joined the KOAS (Kielder Observational Astromomy Society), and I hope
to be going there from time to time for the odd weekend of observing in the
future. I am going to go up for the grand opening on Friday the 25th April
to help out as needed with the various events which have been arranged for
that weekend. To join as a KOAS member costs £15 per year, but folk who
feel they can't justify full membership can still support KOAS by becoming a
"Friend of KOAS" for £5/year, which gives you e-mail newletters, and
discounts off the public observing events, etc.

The actual construction of the observatory is runing a few weeks behind
schedule, which is not too bad for such a unique project at the top of a
bleak hill, and although the 20" scope's "dome" will not be operational by
the 25th April, the openeing weekend will be proceeding as planned that day
(Friday) with the 14" scope in place in it's "dome". For those of you who
know the location from previous vists, there is now a "Solar System trail"
between the "Sky Space" building and the Kielder Observatory location, with
the planets laid out at scale distances along the trail. At the top near
the observatory there is standing space now for 10 to 15 cars, although a
key to the gate is required to drive all the way up to the observatory.

All the building work should be finished by the end of May, and at some
point the building will be handed over to KOAS to run and operate. Part of
the agreement with the Forestry Commission and Kielder Enterprises is that a
certain number of public events will be held each year. Already there have
been various visits by schools, youth programs and academics from Durham
university.

It is hoped that some exo-planet transit observational work can be
undertaken at the observatory as part of a pro-am colaboration project.
Recently the two main telescopes have been joined by a 0.5 Angstrom H-aplha,
60mm telescope, for daytime solar observation.

For those of you who want details of the Autumn event, you can find them at
the following web site :-

http://www.richarddarn.demon.co.uk/starcamp/


Very best wishes and clear, dark skies.


Paul B, York, UK.
__________________________________________________ _________________


"Robert Williams" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

just got back from Kielder Star Party.

Saturday night was spectaculalrly clear, albeit almost cancelled due to a
snow storm at 8pm, but that all cleared by 10pm. I called it a day at 2am
with the temperature somewhere around -7, but a few hardy soles stuck it
out until dawn. Conditions very good with pin-sharp stars and no
noticeable haze.
Sunday night was mostly a blot out, though again a few did stay up to get
some views after midnight.
Kielder certainly looks different with a coating of the white powdery
stuff.
I believe the galaxy hunters had a great time - plenty to see in Leo and
other constellations.

Unfortunately the new Observatory won't be finished on the planned date in
late April - probably a 2 week over-run.

Next Kielder Star party planned for Halloween weekend (I think).

May see some of you there.

Robert