BLT on Tour

I plucked up the courage to book a pitch at the AstroCamp Star Party in Cymdu, Wales, run by those fine people at the Awesome Astronomy Podcast. The long weekend promised the potential for observing under crystal clear skies in the Brecon Beacons dark sky reserve, meeting likeminded folk and enjoying a little R&R.

What to take?

For the weeks leading up to the camp I tested various rigs I could take to make the most of the chance for both visual and astrophotography. Initially I planned to take my Mak Cass OMC-140 at 2000mm focal length on a equatorial mount. I have been running a test with a 0.5x reducer for astrophotography which was working pretty well. However, having checked the forecast, there wasn’t going to be many clear nights - maybe only one - so I wanted something tried and tested.

I settled on my principal widefield setup: iOptron SkyGuider Pro with William Optics WhiteCat 51 APO and ASI294MC Pro cooled colour camera. This is for astrophotography only, so I aslo packed an alt-azi manual mount and my WO Megrez 72mm refractor and eyepieces. This also left more room in the car for camping gear, food, and other essentials. Finally, I took my photography rucksack containing a Canon 6D and Move Shoot Move rotator for tracked widefield DSLR photography.

So, how did it go?

Great, although I didn’t stick around for the whole 3 days. The joy of clear skies brings the doom of the cold, and boy was it cold. It reached -7C on Saturday into Sunday, which is not pleasant in a tent. On Sunday morning I had to take a long walk in the crisp morning sunshine to warm up my extremities, and visit the café for some warmth and sustenance. The photos below show the frost on the ground and on the scope covers.

But weather aside, I pitched up on Saturday and met some people around The Common. Cups of tea become bottles of beer and the talks commenced in the gazebo. I chatted with folks about their interests and aims for the weekend. I nipped away to have some food before returning as the skies began to darken with my photographic rig and visual scope set up side by side.

Dr Jeni was ploughing through the Messier Catalogue nearby and Paul was leading a sky tour with stubborn clouds covering the main bit he’d prepared to talk about; Leo. This was also my intended target for the nights, so I too had to change tack, starting first on the Double Cluster, then switching to M101. While this was snapping away, I tried picking out a few nice visual targets and looking through other scopes. This included John’s famed ‘Bob the Dob’ which required a ladder to get up to the eyepiece for stunning views of M13 and M51. There was also a evoscope drawing lots of attention - the views were impressive but it felt slightly weird knowing you were only looking at an electronic eyepiece, not the real thing.

Around midnight my batteries had had enough, perhaps accelerated by the cold. I had every intention of going to bed but saw Leo now framed between the trees and grabbed my DSLR for a widefield view. I finally crawled into my 2 sleeping bags around 1.30am.

Sunday daytime, the weather was again pretty clear and cold as we sat around the gazebo for talks or around the tents chatting. There was a collection of solar scopes allowing views of the sun and sunspots in various wavelengths. HA with its deep red hue looked the most impressive I thought. Dr Jeni gave a great talk about the JWST although I’ll admit to nodding off briefly as the combination of being cosy in the sun and knackered, made it hard to keep my eyes open.

A quiz followed from the Awesome Astronomy team in which I’m astonished to say I came second, winning a prize of some vouchers for Tring Astronomy. They then ran a live Q&A session recorded as a podcast which sparked some debate covered key issues in current astronomy and research.

The next camp is planned for September, which could be far kinder for the fair weather campers like me. Would I go back? Yes, I think so. Why not.

Images from Astrocamp