Southern Sentinel Observing Report

With this weekend being a long weekend, due to it being Queen’s Birthday, I decided to head down to Hamilton to do some observing with Dave Brock. I booked some accommodation earlier in the week and looked forward to some good observing.

I headed down early on the Friday afternoon and arrived in Hamilton at about 3:30PM. But it was completely cloudy. I cancelled the accommodation there and then and then headed to Dave’s place and waited for it to clear. It never did enough to head out, so I headed back to Auckland.

However, the next day was clear in both Auckland and Hamilton, so I took another punt and drove down the 1 1/2 hours again. The Waikato was foggy and we needed to get above the fog, if any observing was going to happen.

Dave and I loaded our scopes into his van, and decided to head south to the Kawhia Rd, to a farm owned by a member of the Hamilton Astronomical Society. We met Jethro and then drove the 45 minutes to the farm. Alan Kane had also travelled down from Auckland, and was there when we arrived. It was very clear so we set up and go ready to observe.

I had spent some time planning for this weekend and had the Argo Navis loaded with objects, all not seen or not seen for some time.

The observing session was definitely punctuated by cloud. Large banks of cloud rolled in for extended periods and then cleared again. So we were observing then standing around talking, then observing again. Despite this I logged many objects and was efficiently moving from object to object.

The Argo Navis performed well and I had no problems with any gear. I had the dew heaters cranking and did not suffer from any problems with dew. Although I wish that I had bought the built in secondary heater when I purchased my spider from Protostar, because I was pretty certain that the secondary would have been vulnerable if we had clear skies consistently for a few hours. Every time in cleared you could see the mist form.

Good to catch up with two comets again, and also the heart of the Virgo Cluster, Markarian’s Chain.

Eventually light drizzle started and we packed up quickly. We were in the van ready to head home at 12:01am.

We reckon that the farm was likely to more cloudy that the surrounding area due to it’s location close to Mt Porongia. The trick is to find a site above the fog, in the predominately flat Waikato region. This is going to be a challenge in the future.

An excellent night, despite the cloud.

Paul Kemp
13.1" f5 Reflector with Argo Navis & Paracorr
Auckland, New Zealand
36° 55' 09" South, 174° 43' 30" East

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