New astronomy group set up in South Kerry

Hi,
I've just set up a new Astronomy Group down here in the bog where the skies are pollution free. It took me a year to get a website up and running ...www.the-universe.ie...and it'll probably take longer to get the group running smoothly.

We've no money, hardly any equipment, lots of enthuasim but shur there it goes.

Beginners Astronomy classes will begin enrolling in the O'Connell centre, Caherciveen on Mon 22 - Fri 24th September ...hope someone books in:(

On Friday 24th Sept we will be giving our first open slide /talk show with an outside star viewing weather permitting at 10.00 pm in Tech Amergin, Waterville, Co. Kerry. That will take place after a lecture by archeoligist John Sheehan who will be giving a talk on the arch. history of the Iveragh Peninsula. He is a brilliant speaker and I just hope we are up to the task of following an act like him. Any suggestions PLEASE.
The attached picture is me pleading to the stars for help

Julie.
Many congrats and best wishes with the new club!
The Kerry skies are some of the darkest and I've yet to
observe down there...
Keep up the good work..your site is great...

Frank.

Hurragh 2 people out there in the big wide world read my post...thanks guys.

The group will either take flight and be a sucess or fall away into obliveion we'll just have to see.

Will be setting up the old Facebook site soon for the group, so that should provide some kind of public profile.

Can't tell you the number of phone-photo's people are showing me of strange lights in the sky, haven't got a clue what they are and I don't know why people think that I should. Those Japanese Lanterens are becoming a bit of a rage now and I think some of the pics are that. We don't live far away from the weather station in Caherciveen and they have their work to do ...so it might be something to do with them. Fireballs are another possibility, as is the ISS. Of course everyone is secretely hoping they have seen and photographed a UFO.
Night folks

Hi ,
I hope it all works out for you, you'll find many like minded people on this site, and I hope you feel better knowing you are not alone.
Are you forming a club or are you setting up a set of lectures, just wondering..

Hi Julie

Glad to see you landed here at last :-)I forgot to send you that outreach stuff, will do soon.

If you are planing on showing the ole Moon on Saturday for InOMN 2010 let me know asap so I can include your new club in this International effort , read about it in the forum.

Bye for now
Deirdre Kelleghan
Vice Chair IFAS

Why ohh why where you not setup earlier in the year.

I holiday in Castlecove in a house on Eagle hill on the Kerry way. I was there from the 21st to the 28th of august and had my 8.75" scope with me. I was also there for 9 days over Easter.

Great location with some great sky's.

I hope to cath up with you guys the next time I'm down there.

joner.

ps, Your link to Your site does not work for me ?.

Ah shur we're set up now, so email me the next time you are down or something..
is it ok to supply email address of the group on this board? or are there nasty spam viruses waiting for the beloved @ to appear? if it is ok then I'll post it on the board next time I'm online.

Can't get onto my origional profile page to alter the origional text above, the web address is www.the-universe.ie
but somehow in the origional text I placed an and at the end and I can't seem to remove it.

We are planning on building our own telescope as a group project ...any one of you try this?
Got the blueprints off the internet and they sure look the business. Anyone got an inkling as to where ce can buy the mirrors and glass...good quality ones...hopefully in the uk or someplace like that?

Our group is for Lectures, Sky viewing, educational workshops for children and adults, so we are a little bit of this and a little bit of that at the moment. Over time maybe one one aspect of the group will take off and we'll just stick with that.

A lot of people get Astronomy mixed up with Astrology as you know, so there's that to contend with.
Was speaking to a very high end professor the other day and I was amazed the he didn't even know the names of the planets after the usual Mars, Venus n stuff.

That would be great Deirdre, it is such an uphill battle down here, trying to overcome the sterotyping of only men are interested in Astronomy. We will be doing workshops etc come Science week in Nov so I'd really appriciate the extra material. Keep up with the tips though they are a great help. Isn't it a pit that there is no place to rent a decent scope for crowd viewings. it will be an age before we can afford one and the youngsters ...and some of the oldsters...are dying to get thier view from a big scope. The biggest we have is about 6".

Can I ask how many people are in the group, just wondering....

Do you have a planned observing site and if so...
Can I come!

I've been itching to get to Kerry Skies foe a Long time!
Hey!
I'll even throw in a talk for your club if that makes a hill of beans of a difference!

ohhhhh, didnt think of that!! there are probalily a few of up here who'd come along to an observing session in west Kerry for some observing if you were having one, have you talked to the guys in Tralee?

Hey! Feck off Dave!! U tryin to give me the heave ho!!
(ha ha - No Dave is in the same club as me...
im sure if you got him to do a talk then we'd end up takling the spin down ....eh Dave?)

swkerry wrote:

Ah shur we're set up now, so email me the next time you are down or something..
is it ok to supply email address of the group on this board? or are there nasty spam viruses waiting for the beloved @ to appear? if it is ok then I'll post it on the board next time I'm online.

Can't get onto my origional profile page to alter the origional text above, the web address is www.the-universe.ie
but somehow in the origional text I placed an and at the end and I can't seem to remove it.

We are planning on building our own telescope as a group project ...any one of you try this?
Got the blueprints off the internet and they sure look the business. Anyone got an inkling as to where ce can buy the mirrors and glass...good quality ones...hopefully in the uk or someplace like that?

Eugene (Deise Astronomy) and I built the 8.75" I have and I'm currently building a 14.7" (I should have finished it in the summer but got sidetracked with diy).

I can highly recommend Mark Cowan of Obsidian optics for a mirror . He done me a fantastic deal on the 14.7" mirror I have , pm me if you want more details on price and shipping deal he can do if you want.

Frank_Ryan_jr wrote:

Hey! Feck off Dave!! U tryin to give me the heave ho!!
(ha ha - No Dave is in the same club as me...
im sure if you got him to do a talk then we'd end up takling the spin down ....eh Dave?)

ahhh, who said anything about me doing a talk, I prefer to sit back and enjoy the show,
you can sweat it out, I'm happy to sit back and observe

Greetings,
We have the most amazing site in Caherciveen, right beside the Vanencia weather station with a terriffic meeting room that's so homely you just won't want to go home. It's pitch dark at night, no stray lights of cars or anyting... so it's perfect, and as you can imagine the shores of the Sea is not far away. Very beautiful in the day too. I'd think anyone with a good astro camera would be in heaven with the sights above and around them. Haven't actually used the site yet as a group, we are just gathering the troops together,,,setting up bank accounts, talks, and so on. But it's ours come October.
There's another unbelievably dark site in Dromaid, outside waterville.
Ballinskelligs beach is another great spot....
As you can imagine we are spoiled for great spots down here in this neck of the woods.
Of course you are welcome to come down and we would love to hear you speak and have a peek through that scope of yours.
There are a lot of standing stones down here as well where the bones of todays astronomy was laid down. The sun shines right through the alighned huge stones right on cue come the solstice, it's amazing.
Then there are the stigue forts thousands of years old, no-one has a clue what they were all about but they are in dark places and once inside the stone walls all sound seems to evaporate and there's nothing but the roof of sky overhead....amazing.

Paid up members to date...10...which isn't bad considering we are only getting off the ground. I feel that the locals are watching from the sidelines waiting to see if we develop as a group or not...which is ok. There are a lot of people interested in coming to the talks only, which is also ok...and you never know what might kick off.

Membership only opened on Friday 17th Sept when our bank account was opened. On the books we have 30 others wanting to become members and I've only got in touch with them about the new account Friday night.

I can hear the enthusiasm coming through your posts, its great to see people with a drive to get a club off the ground and do some good astronomy. We'd love to go observing at your site, make a weekend out of it, who knows.

How much did you pay for your big scope? and where di you get it?
It looks like the Eiffel tower from your pic....brilliant!
Does it come appart, and in how many pieces and how long does it take to put it back together again....wow

Wow well done. 10 already! That's great.
Your probably in the best part of this country if not Europe for
dark skies.
Can we take it as an open invitation so!?
I was down in Waterville a few years back
(before I had a good camera) and I was blown away
At just how dark it was there.
As for your meetings.
You'll probably find most in your club
Just want to attend talks and be there for the social
Aspect of it which is perfect.
But with skies like yours down there it'd be a crime
not to avail of them.

a weekend down Kerry way sounds on the ball!
Any good campsites near your observing site!?

well, it certainly is a heafty piece of gear, but for me its all about getting as good a look at an object as possible, I got it second hand at
http://www.astrobuysell.com/
Buying it new would have been astronomically expensive, so i got it for a good price as these sized scopes depreciate rapidly from the new price and plateau off at a resonable price.
It does break down, the top comes off, the poles come off and the entire thing fits into my estate car. If it didnt come apart, you'd need a crane and a flatbed truck to carry it around.
Its all about the views though, otherwise it would be a pointless exercise,
You see galaxies with spiral arms, M57 resembles its photographic view although not as bright as a photograph, getting 10-15 galaxies in the same FOV while strolling through the virgo cluster is not all that uncommon. Under a dark sky, globular clusters (esp M13!!) are juse the most amazing things you'll ever see in this scope. And the planets are not too bad either, so its actually a good all rounder, the only thing that goes against it is its sheer size. Id get a bigger one if I could afford it and had the ability to transport it.

Its certainly not a scope for a beginner or novice, I'm the 4th owner, and I got it when it was 2 years old!, the previous guy before me had to physically take off his front door to get it out of the house, aperture feavour got the the better of them. they didnt realise what they were buying.,

PS, I'd have it built and collimated in about 15mins on average.

Julie,
Great to hear that you are up and running and that you already have a core of signed up members. As we said before, we would be only delighted to travel down with our telescopes to any planned observing session you have. I still have fond memories of the session we had in the grounds of Piarsaigh na Dromoda GAA pitch a couple of years ago. Just send a email or PM and let us know where and when.

Michael Scully.
Secretary, Kerry Astronomy Club.

Well Mr. Super Giant you'll just have to come down here to Kerry and show off that scope of yours.