| October 24th to 27th - Deep Sky Camp |
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| Written by Greg Smye-Rumsby | |
 Saturday was, for a little while, overcsat. But our spirits were certainly not dampened. Indeed, it took several of us to convince Mike not to get his guitar out.  Paul getting the Sun and its huge spots into view. DSC, as it is affectionately known, began on Friday 24th October, when Jeff, Miriam, Jim, Paul, Mike and Cris set up tents in good time to get in a full evening of astronomy.There was very little cloud about and although conditions were not perfect, due to the wetness of the air, they were far better than we have become accustomed to in light polluted Orpington. To this end, one of the aspects we concentrated on was limiting magnitude, successfully obtaining a figure for each of our three evenings at the camp. 32 Andromedæ, at magnitude 5.3, could comfortably be seen with the naked eye, as could M31, the Andromeda spiral, above it, so we had to move on to our more detailed auxiliary list of comparison stars. We had already exhausted the one for use from our back gardens! 9 Cygni, at 5.38, 82 Ursæ Majoris, at 5.40, and HD 4222 in Cassiopeia, at 5.42, were all visible, so on we went, in tenths of a magnitude, to our next level of benchmark stars. Satisfied that HD 100203 in Ursa Major and HD 31539 in Taurus, both at 5.48, Epsilon Trianguli, at 5.50, and HD 24640 in Perseus, at 5.51, could all be glimpsed at, we carried on. HD 5408 in Cassiopeia, at 5.57, HD 4853 in Cepheus, at 5.59, 81 Ursæ Majoris, at 5.60 and 93 Ceti, at 5.61, all remained tantalisingly out of sight, so we settled on a limiting magnitude, for that evening, of 5.5.  Imogen taking advantage of a free push even if it was airbourne. There were plenty of meteors whizzing about, as if we did not have enough to look at, but close doubles were difficult to resolve, especially through the 2-inch Zeiss refractor, which failed to separate either Gamma Arietis or the Trapezium, two objects entirely able to be seen under better conditions. Then, as midnight approached, the viewing improved.  Cris looking at the sunspot group which was naked-eye. Miriam was not going to stay Friday night and finally took an ailing Jeff home with her a little before 1 am. With the ground cold and crunchy beneath our feet, an impressive layer of ice on Jim's telescope tube and fog rolling in, we retired to our tents, only to be woken by a mad unzipping, zipping and mild profanities aimed at the temperature from Paul who woke at 5 am wishing he had brought that duvet after all.  The two huge sunspotscaptured on video during the day.  Greg's pic of Uranus.
We baked bread in the clay oven, potatoes by the open fire and inspected the Medicine Wheel in the next field, as a glorious rainbow coloured the horizon. With dusk approaching and food supplies running low, a trip to the chippy was in order. Suitably fortified against the elements, another night of astronomy ensued. The sky was clear virtually down to the horizon by sunset and Greg managed to find us Venus through binoculars, though the slender crescent Moon remained elusive. We then found Uranus with binoculars as easily as we had done on the first night, but our attempts at locating Neptune were fruitless, we must have seen it, but seeing and identifying are two different matters. Conditions never returned to how they had been after midnight on Friday, when Mike was able to point out M36 and M37, two star clusters in Auriga, with the naked eye, but our mid-evening survey of limiting magnitude produced a result of 5.5, as it had done on the two previous evenings.  Paul's wonderful image of the California Nebula.  During one quick shower on Saturday afternoon there was a magnificent rainbow. The camp had progressively emptied during the evening and, by the time Jeff and Miriam left, the fire was down to embers and Paul was left alone to get on with his fantastic astro-photography. Unfortunately not soon after everyone else had left the clouds rolled in and the rain started. The clouds cleared at around 3am, Paul stuck his head out of the tent flap to see a gloriously clear sky, but the "lightweight" went back to bed to dream of duvets and central heating.
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We awoke to the sounds of the country, a blackbird clucking indignantly at a passing kestrel, as we continued to settle into the easygoing nature of life under canvas in the middle of a field. A target was found for the bow and arrow that Sebastian had so thoughtfully brought along for the adults to play with, until the trusty shaft shattered, after finding its mark once too often. The wheelbarrow that had been provided for collection of firewood proved equally as useful for giving Imogen a lift and seeing how high she could be propelled into the air when encountering an obstacle at speed.| < Prev | Next > |
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