English
Svenska
|
Advertisement / Annons: |
My travels in Sweden:
|
Content: |
2, MAK, Mariestad Star Party, day twoMAK:
We arrived about 11 am on the second day. First I setup my stuff that I had brought with me to sell. And then we looked if there were something we had a need of, and there were! 
We found this instrument, a lot of them. New but with a small defect. With this instrument you can measure Voltage, Ampere and Ohm as usual, but also temperature, sound level, and light level. We bought two of them to the cost of the battery that was included. 
Seppo and Gunilla, maybe they are talking about the weather, weather forecasts are always important talk on a star party. To the left is an used Newton telescope for sale, amateur built. 
Even this day I held a talk, this time about observatories we had found on our travels in Europe. Sören the chairman of MAK (in black) introduced me to the audience. 
Here is Faliraki at Rhodos with the observatory Astronomy Cafe I talk about. I think everyone in the audience found this place interesting. My list of observatories we have visited. 
I, Gunnar and Gunilla on walk and try to answer the questions on the contest. 
The biggest observatory, it has an Newton telescope with a huge 0.6 meters mirror, unimaginable big. It was open for observations later at night. We didn't get time to visit it, but you can see a photo from the interior from an earlier visit here , scroll down to the bottom of the page. 
Question 5: Which is the hottest star you can see by the naked eye ? Correct answer, X = Beta Monocerotis. The questions were difficult, Gunnar had the strategy to mark as many X as possible, Gunilla and I had another strategy. Gunnar's strategy turned out to be the best, he was among the three best, we were not. |
|
Advertisement / Annons: |
The MAK staff was maybe worried about the visitors, yellow bands show us how to go and not get lost. 
Back to the tent and flee market. I sold one monocular and one camera. 
Our friend Per (blue and black jacket) was also here, he bought a small table Dobson. 
Next talk, also by a Lars but not me. He told us about his life as an amateur astronomer and how he and his friends try to do observations with a science touch. Makes it much more interesting. 
View from the observatory terrace. 
I took a walk down to the parking lot which is also the observations place. I want to see what instruments people had brought with them. Here I have found people around some instruments. 
It's Seppo, the man in middle who has setup his three telescopes, no space left in the car. I think it's the third time he did this setup because of rain that come and go. It's one 9.25" Schmitt-Cassegrain, one solar telescope and one 3.5" refractor. He will do a test during the night to compare two of telescopes. I will ask him later what he found out. The man in black to the right is Joel von Knorring, Sweden's famous mirror grinder. It's always interesting to talk to him. This time I asked him about honeycomb mirrors and how to figure them. As expected he told that it's very difficult, the pattern on the backside makes imprint on the front side. Why I asked, I have no use of a mirror, but I found this exiting article years ago:
I sent this link to a new friend who have just built an oven. He like the idea :-) Who knows, maybe I one day have a honeycomb 12" f/4 mirror in my bookshelf to look at. 
I didn't brought with me any instruments, but still I could do something. This is a hand held photo of Big Dipper with some support against the wall. We left about 10 pm and drived to our next hotel in Skara. Later I heard from Gunnar that the night had been dramatic with a power failure, all observtories get dark. Gunnar had problem with his polar aligne and I don't think he got any sucess with his Deep Sky Photos.
|
|