Chester Astronomical Society Barbecue 2001

The Annual Chester Astronomical societies BBQ was again held at Andrew Bates Farm near Waverton just south of Chester on the 3rd November 2001.

We ( Myself, Steve King, Dave Owen and Geoff Regan) had been working on the new 30inch TROK mirror that afternoon. I had decided to take the 16inch dobs along to the BBQ., using the van instead of the car. Hazel, Kayleigh and my son David decided to follow in the car so that they could leave early. We arrived at Andrews around 7:30pm. Some had already arrived. We set up the 16inch next to Andres nearly completed 14inch. The BBQ was arranged around the occultation of Saturn by the Moon. The weather was not looking good and time got near. Close to first contact, the clouds lifted slightly and most of us got a look through a telescope to see Saturn partially occulted by the Moon before the clouds covered it up again. Saturn reappeared in another small cloud break also. Andre Bates and Dave Galvin had managed to image the occultation with CCD security type cameras. The results being very good.

Images below show Andres 14 inch with Geoff and a couple of images of the 16inch. One with Kayleigh and the other a group photo.

Later that evening, myself and Dave Owen packed up and made our way back to our house. Dave have determined that there would be a grazing occultation early the next morning at around 4:40am!. We got back and set up the 16inch back into its run off shed. The sky was very clear by now and things looked good for the graze.

We had some sleep and set the alarm for 4:00am. But when we awoke the sky had become cloudy and was getting worse. we set up the 16inch and 30inch anyway, just in case and had tapes ready for recording. But the weather had the better of us!!

Dave Thomson