MOSSEL BAY NEWS - Members of the Mossel Bay Astronomical Society (MBAS) recently attended the biannual Southern Star Party held at the adventure-based guest farm north of Montagu, Leeuwenboschfontein.
The event took place from 20 to 22 October.
The number of stargazers came in drips and drabs from Wednesday up to Friday evening to swell the numbers to about 70 participants.
Climatically the weekend was ideal as a dark sky was predicted with the moon basically non-existent.
And indeed it was so as the dark sky meter indicated a figure of 21.8 compared to the average of Sutherland’s 21.7 average!
After setting up camp or moving into the chalets, the telescopes started to come out in their droves.
Some 50 telescopes were assembled, orientated and aligned to the South Celestial Pole with various Dobsonians, refractors, reflectors and Schmidt-Cassegrains making an appearance.
There was plenty of time to socialise at the event.
During the introduction meeting where everyone met one another and the strict rule of “no-white light” was emphasised, the numerous stargazers left for the lawn where the red lights started to appear in the semi dark.
This was to facilitate dark adaptation of the eyes to enable better sight during viewing times. So the Southern Star party had begun!
Auke Slotegraaf (presenting astronomer) gave an excellent laser-guided tour of the brilliant heavens, explaining and indicating some of the more prominent constellations and open and globular clusters.
The attendees without binoculars and telescopes could move from one telescope to another to see the sights through different magnifications and types and sizes of telescopes.
Some keen photographers had set up their cameras and various focal lengths of lenses to capture the mind-boggling sights. Some even had Charged Coupled Devices arranged to the viewing ends of their Optical Tube Assemblies (OTAs).
And so the night progressed from East to West and at about 04:00 most people had gone to bed.
At 08:00 coffee and rusks were presented in the barn and lectures started at about 10:30.
Michael Wolfson (from Canada) presented an excellent lecture with examples of inexpensive and aircraft-transportable Dobsonian telescopes, basically using waste material such as old bicycle rims!
This was followed by a lecture by Anton Binneman (PRO for the SKA and Meerkat project) on the latest developments at Carnavon.
After a sumptuous braai at the lapa and one of two swimming pools, Pierre de Villiers (immediate past president of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa) gave us an insight into the latest outreach programmes in which members of ASSA train school educators in astronomy.
Dr Michele Cluver (A. Prof) gave a jaw dropping presentation on the Hi-Vision changes coming about and how we will interpret the night sky using different “visionary” equipment such as Infra-Red; Radio-telescopes; X-and GAMMA ray photography.
Sunday morning saw most people breaking camp and putting their cyclopses away for the return journey home. Another successful Southern Star Party hosted by Edward and Lynette Foster and Auke Slotegraaf came to an end.
For more information or to join the Mossel Bay Astronomical Society, contact Francois le Roux (0833217120) or Johan Uys (0766442869).
We meet every second Thursday of the month at Eden Country Inn at 19:00.
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