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KELLING HEATH STAR PARTY
Thursday 13/09/07. Myself, Geoff Regan and Dave Owen set up camp in the yellow field, I had brought my ten-inch Orion Intelliscope. After getting some provisions in, we went walkabout to look at some of the scopes. There where quit a lot of scopes on view and the owners were only to pleased to talk about them. Two particular scopes took Dave and Geoffs interest, a 12-inch binocular scope belonging to Bolton A.S. and a twenty-inch f3.7 dobs. Early in the evening Dave Bentley and John Leek arrived, they were staying in a B and B about twenty miles away. Unfortunately it was cloudy in the evening so a game of cards and copious amounts of liquid refreshment ensued.
Friday 14/09/07. The day started off quite cloudy again so we went to see some of the local attractions and towns. By seven-o-clock in the evening the sky started to clear and shortly after sunset we were able to view Jupiter low in the south-west by twilight the sky had cleared up nicely and the milkyway was starting to become visible the next five hours were incredible as one target after another was viewed my favourite of the evening being ngc6992 and ngc6960 the veil nebula, I have had great difficulty spotting this from Pex Hill but was blown away by the structure I could see. We spent most of the night viewing familiar objects because some of us had never seen them so clear before, objects like m31, m33, m27 m110 and so on (below is an incomplete list of objects viewed, I can’t remember all) also the amount you could see in 10x50 binoculars was incredible.
Saturday 15/09/07. This day started early due to the trade stands setting up and waking me up (I’m not complaining though). There were quite a few Trade stands and a few car boot stalls, which afforded some bargains. It was a nice sunny and relaxing day, much needed after previous nights gazing, I did not go to any of the organized talks (to lazy). The evening started off like the previous evening, clear and transparent, and a good session started, but by two in the morning everyone was extremely tired and called it a day. My one big impression of the evening was seeing a dust lane in m31 through binoculars.
Sunday 16/09/07. The morning was spent casually packing up and I left about two in the afternoon.
My overall view of the star party was, a round trip of 500 miles that was worth every second, the Kelling Heath Holiday park was very good, the toilet block had under floor heating and was very clean, the bar meals were good value and the on site store had a fairly good selection, but like all these on site stores a little bit expensive. I have already booked the same pitch for next year so here’s hoping for clear skies.
List of objects observed
Planets- Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Mars
Messier- m8, m11, m13, m15, m17, m20, m23, m27, m31, m32, m33, m51, m57, m63, m76, m81, m82, m92, m101,
M103, m110
Ngc- ngc6992, ngc6960 ngc253, ngc1491, ngc7331, ngc7332, ngc7339, ngc457, ngc3077 ngc6802, ngc884, ngc869, ngc7662, ngc7009.
There were more but I just can’t remember.
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I have learnt a lot more about clouds since taking up astronomy. Roll on crisp clear frosty winter evenings
