Robscopes starparty 2023

Star Party? More like a food and drink Festival!

The Milky Way ideally positioned and we get to see one paltry image of the Sun. :) 

Star Party? More like a food and drink Festival!

The Milky Way ideally positioned and we get to see one paltry image of the Sun. :) 

I was doing visual Ray, 20” dob, Solar and a big SCT, I image all the time so for me this time I took advantage of the dark skies for visual fun

Most other people were imaging 

We did however have lots and lots of nice food, myself and Pete did a far whack of cooking so it was fun 

Seve

I enjoyed that, thanks for sharing!  Its clear there is a unique atmosphere over there (in both senses of the word), and I can just tell by the blue of that sky that the evenings must have been amazing...  Time for a snack, I'm not sure why but going through that gallery made me hungry! ;)

I enjoyed that, thanks for sharing!  Its clear there is a unique atmosphere over there (in both senses of the word), and I can just tell by the blue of that sky that the evenings must have been amazing...  Time for a snack, I'm not sure why but going through that gallery made me hungry! ;)

Star parties for me are more than about the skies, you get to enjoy other cultures, food and each others company whilst doing you shared passion. They are great fun. As it happens I am just eating some Extramadura black pig dried sausage with Cheese for lunch :)

We are already looking at a place for next year, up towards Salamanca this time, even darker skies!!

Steve

Hi Steve,

thanks for sharing the photos with us. This year, unfortunately, I did not have time. September was very full for me. But should there be another star party, I will certainly be there :)

CS

Darius

Believe it or not, there was Astronomy at the star party. I managed to get a full imaging rig on a plane which was a first!

It's not everyday you get to look through a 20" dob as your first ever experience with visual astronomy - so thanks to Pete and Steve for setting that beast up, it was sincerely apprecaited. Watching the Veil nebula pop when you put that o3 filter in the eye-piece was amazing. It was like one of those old magic-eye things - it just popped out. Everyone needs a Big Dob in their life.

Steve also bought some super-rare solar scope from his cave of wonders at ENS Optical. The sun did a huge burp and all this stuff came out of it while we were watching. Sorry for the scientific explanation, but it was awesome.

We thought we would be clouded out from the weather, but there's a super weird microclimate there and you can watch clouds evaporate above you as the evening comes in. Wafts of super hot hair randomly roll down the hills like opening an oven door - so weird!

Day one was a bit of an imaging write off, stupid clouds refusing to evaporate and all. Bit I did manage to capture a daytime California Nebula which was nice.

We arrived at the villa with well packed equipment and beer. Unfortunately there wasn't enough beer because there was a hole in every single bottle.  It was so dark there - I think Bortle 2 or so. Milky way like a blanket across the sky. I thought it was another bloody cloud at first...

As for imaging, which was my main reason for going, we got about 2.5 nights of clear skies with the Tuesday being the best by far. Historically we were pretty unlucky to get the clouds we did I believe. It's an El Niño year so all bets are off. I had a bevvy of targets planned but due to the clouds I decided to go for something brighter that I knew would net me a lovely image if the stars were obscured by obnoxious dihydrogen monoxide.

I've gone for a widefield of the Tulip/Crescent neb region encompassing both. I took an OSC and Askar ACL200 with filterwheel. I imaged in Ha-O3 and S2-Hb. There was so much Hb there I couldn't believe it!

I don't actually know how I am going to process the image yet, there's just so much signal across 4 different channels... I don't want it coming out like a rainbow picasso. The lastest plan is to ditch the S2, process HOO and isolate the hydrogen beta from the o3 and add it as continuum to the HOO image. This has been a massive learning curve and I'm still messing around trying to get it right. I've attached a screen shot that shows unique Hb areas.

I've attached some completely unprocessed auto-streched frames of the Ha, Hb, O3 and S2 data I got - I'm very pleased with what I have.

I am fully up for the next trip, though I would request less bullying from the northern contingent as us southern jessie's can't take the abuse :)

Thank you in particular to the Roboscopes crew, you put a huge amount of effort in and it was sincerely appreciated.

P.S.

BUY INSURANCE FROM THE CAR HIRE PEOPLE LOL!

With Steve's solar scope, we imaged the sun and here is the result after some processing. There was a very large prominence at the time of observation.

CS

Manuel

On the night of September 12, I installed my all sky camera and too a 3s image every 10s, resulting in over 2500 images to be processed and put together in a star trail. Shortly after 02:11 a large meteor was captured ... we actually saw a lot of them during the party. There was quite a bit of activity ...

CS

Manuel

Thanks Pete and Manuel for some proper photos, much appreciated. It appears everyone had a great time and as yet I've not read any accounts of any mild food poisoning.

It's nice to see some results of what was able to be captured despite the short amount of decent skies you had during the visit. I was especially pleased to see the image of the Sun that Manuel posted. A far more accomplished effort than what had originally been posted. :) 

Now call me a sceptic, but the daytime California nebula looks to me to be a very imaginative brilliant rendition of a sunset-lit cloud. If I'm wrong then 24 hour astrophotography will become the biggest breakthrough in a very long time.

The time lapse of star trails is testimony to the patience of all of us astrophotographers. Imagine sitting or standing there all night regularly pushing the shutter button. Such dedication and a great justified result. 

I'm hoping I'll get to see some more in the coming days after you've had time to recover.

Thanks guys and CS. 

Ray

On our way back from the star party, we stopped in Salamanca for a couple of days, visiting this beautiful city full of history. It is really worth a detour! Among the highlights, we went to the university and visited the Sky of Salamanca, a 15th century fresco. For those interested in history, here is an interesting link: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2208/2208.01722.pdf.

CS
Manuel

Fantastic time had - great location, even better company and stunning food.  What more could you ask for?

Regards

Mark