Open Invitation to EAE Summer Star Parties-Mt Parnon, GREECE

Don't worry guys,
my luxury car has VIP services for two extra persons! :roll: :roll: :roll:

cache.wists.com/thumbnails/c/de/cdec004f...32101703b706dd8-orig

Have a nice flight!

Dear friends,
Finally the above VIP services enjoyed by Michael O & Dave G.
I don't know what happened to the other two :lol:

Well four awesome days and three excellent dark nights -clouded only
by our Milky Way is a past.

Two photos from daylight activities:
www.astronomia.org.gr/Coppermine/display...hp?album=5&pos=0
&
www.astronomia.org.gr/Coppermine/display...hp?album=5&pos=3

Thanks to Michael O, Dave G, Dave L & Frank for being with us
these days.
John Murphy your absence was felt

Oh what an experience!!!

Clear Skies with friends to all of you!

ps. Left things:
1) A very nice NASA hat - I keep it...
2) A white sleeveless undervest - I keep it even I haven't tattoo on my arm :lol:
3) A grey color underwear - I keep it too...
4) An electronic shaving machine - I'll think in future...
5) We haven't checked all cars yet!

3) A grey color underwear - I keep it too...

Yiannis,
Didn't think you were in to that sort of thing....

Sounds like a good time was had - I look forward to seeing pictures and reports from all involved.
Weather here has been apalling :evil: :evil:

Good Morning Ireland!

Sad a moment it was when we had to say good bye and fairwell to our 4 new friends Michael, Frank, Dave L & Dave G.

We all had a great time and enjoyed the nature, the sky and talking under the stars - and under the hot Sun, too!

All amateur astronomers share the same passion for (g)astronomy and life and we were all made of the same stardust (I don't know about
astrologers).
For us, meeting you it was a real pleasure, and I hope to meet again. In Novosibirsk for sure!

John, we expect to meet population II (Ben et all) sometime!

Photos coming soon.
........
ps. Left things:
6) A very nice green ball, in the shape of an elliptical galaxy, with a shamrock stamp! Found in Leonidas's car.
I don't think you could ever manage to get it back!

*soft Voice* Good Morning

What can I say!!!
The generosity of our Greek friends was simply staggering!, very well organised, food, drink, transport, great company, all you could ask for !!!
I was stunned to see that almost everyone had fluent english, I couldn't even say hi in Greek :oops:
We were collected from the airport on Wednesday and brought to the hotel, then we were brought to an observatory on a hill in Athens where we had an amazing view of the city and of the Acropolis !!
You see it on TV but to see it for real is something else :shock:

On Thursday morning we were brought up to Parnon, a fantastic scenic 3 hour drive, the site itself is a perfect high altitude location with a natural spring nearby, without which it would have been impossible to stay up there.

The views of the sky there are amazing, the Sagittarius and Scorpius milkyway view alone is worth the trip, it makes the milkyway in Cygnus look quite feeble, we really loose out by not seeing it properly from Ireland (wait until you see some of the pictures the lads got of it!!!)
The star clouds were easy to see and were amazing in binoculars. The lagoon and trifid nebulae were fab and M22 was much better then M13, best I've ever seen it. The guys there were extremely generous with their telescopes and we all got fantastic high power views of many objects in the sky. We had 3 clear nights, the first day it was cloudy with lightening but it then cleared as it got dark. On Friday night we noticed flashes in the north eastern sky which was completely clear, we found out that there were clouds below us (we were at an altitude of ~1400 meters) and that a massive thunder storm was underway, it went on for a few hours and was flashing every 10-20 seconds, simply amazing. We also saw the ISS pass over and countless meteors, more then I've see in the past 3 years here. One striking thing I noticed was the night-time horizon, atmospheric extinction is no where near as bad as it is here.
On Saturday night we all noticed what looked like dark thin clouds on the southern horizon only to be told it was a forest fire 40km away, the smoke drifted further away and the sky cleared, an event which was a complete novility for us.
The range of scopes there was fab, 20, 18, 15 inch dobs and numerous other SCTs, dobs and refractors.
I certainly packed way too much clothes, next time I'll bring alot less and bring a much bigger tent. Daytime site temperatures were in the high 20s and night-time to me seemed like the low teens, daytime Athens temperatures were in the high 30s !. We went for a swim on the way back on Sunday, I'm now a member of the same club as John Murphy as I ended up stumbling on something with tiny spikes and am near done with getting them out of my feet :lol: I didn't feel them at all and only noticed them when I saw them.
The beach was fantastic and Greece is now right up there with Spain in my list of holiday destinations.
Many thanks to Leonidas, Christina, Vagelis, Yiannis, Stella, Kiriyaki, Stefanos, George + family, Dora, Stelios, Adonis (sorry for bad spellings :oops: ) and everyone else who's names currently eludes me, you all made us feel very welcome and thanks for bearing my sad attempts at trying to pronounce Greek worlds, I have a memory like a sieve at times.

You guys should all be getting paid by the Greek tourism board, you did a fantastic job. !
I only wish we could repay you by having you at an observing session here in Ireland and showing you the sites, but given the totally unpredictable bad weather here it would be a star free trip. See you all again in Novosibirsk.
MANY MANY THANKS!!!