Whyalla AstroCamp, 2006

The Whyalla AstroCamp kicked off on the night of Friday 31 March with visitors from Adelaide and the Yorke Peninsula. John & Bernadine Murray, Manuel Martin and Ernie Ernesti were pleased to welcome Joe & Lyn Grida, Tony, Skip & Toby Henderson, Pauline and Jeff Payne, Frank and Jo, Lynette and Kathleen, Gerard O’Born, Paul and Gail. Starting with a very nice BBQ tea the cloud gods decided we needed feeding up so why bother having clear skies? Tea, coffee and various other drinks were consumed as we all got to know each other. Some of them were new faces as well as some familiar faces.

Everyone had a good look around the facilities at Middleback Station while Toby entertained us by sneaking cakes past Skip. (BTW Skip, after everyone left to return home I found several more stashed away!) After deciding that the clouds just weren’t going to give up, we retired for the night.

Saturday dawned with the cloud forecast just as gloomy. This was getting embarrassing as we like to think in Whyalla we have dark and clear skies! After a nice lunch, we headed over to the lecture hall at the field research station of the University of Adelaide.

I gave the first presentation, which was about the Whyalla Group’s mirror making machine as well as showing everyone the foucault/ronchi tester. Everyone had a look through the tester and was able to see the imperfections in our glass. The piece of glass is our test bed for various methods we’ve tried up here. A nice polish was soon destroyed much to the horror of Joe when we spun up the machine and demonstrated it grinding with #500 grit. I’m not sure if the sound of the glass grinding away was louder than Joe’s teeth grinding as he saw the polish disappear!

After a short break, Pauline gave a talk on the history of German exploration in the 1800s. Especially interesting was how she wove her ancestor’s story into the tale.

Joe then followed with a presentation on some astrophotos that Gerard had taken with his Meade ETX-125 and LPI CCD imager. Gerard also gave some tips on things that he had learnt using this combination. Very impressive results they were. Joe then gave a talk on planetarium programs which are available for the PC. He demonstrated SkyMap Pro 9 which appears to be a very capable program. He was then going to give a talk on the Arkaroola Star Party but this was put off until after the evening meal.

When talks finished a few people headed off in the cars for a tour of Wild Dog Hill. This is a beautiful national park just outside of Whyalla. After returning, we again fired up the BBQ. Jo was able to get a roaring fire going. A huge amount of meat was cooked up which nobody was able to finish. We even had some left over for the next day. We were visited by a soon to be new member, Ted, from Port Augusta. He had come for a visit and was so impressed with the friendliness and atmosphere of the camp that he asked for the membership brochure. With Ted was an old member, Carey, who will also renew. It’s good to see Carey back. The clouds again stayed out to our annoyance but I guess that’s life with astronomy...

A great time was had outside with everyone looking up hopefully. But apart from the occasional teasing star, nothing was visible.

We all then headed back to the hall where Joe gave a fascinating talk about Arkaroola. He showed some spectacular photos and it really does look like the place to be next January. Bernadine and I will certainly be trying to get there. The scenery and the facilities look stunning and with everyone having a common interest. How could you not have an unforgettable experience? After a few more coffees everyone gave up and went to bed. The clouds won again!

The Next day arrived to the smell of bacon and eggs on the BBQ. Life doesn’t get much better than that, does it? After everyone packed up, we said our farewells. We decided that we should ask Council to make this an annual event around this time of year. A top weekend was had by all, despite it being clouded-out. Hopefully next year it’ll be cloud-free!