Recent 3RF News

Recent 3RF News Reports

3RF Serves 1,500 people Parramatta Park Astronomy Night
3RF's Tony Buckley and Lachlan MacDonald attended the recent Parramatta Park Public Astronomy Night along with members of many of the local astronomy clubs around Sydney to introduce the wonders of the night sky to members of the public as a part of the International Year of Astronomy.

Well over two thousand people from the Greater Sydney area attended this popular event, both as individuals and family groups, with many of theose people never having had the opportuity to look through a telescope before.

Highlights of the evening's observing list included the Moon and Saturn as well as a number of bright double stars and star clusters.

3RF's support for this event included providing two large telescopes for Sky Tours which treated over 1,500 members of the public to views of the night skies.

2009 Border StarGaze Mostly Washed Out
The Border StarGaze is a star party hosted by the Astronomical Society of Albury-Wodonga and proudly supported by 3RF. The 2009 event was held from 19-23 August 2009 at the 120 hectare (300 acre) Wymah Valley Retreat, 32km north of Albury, New South Wales.

3RF offered its support for Border StarGaze by providing a number of large telescopes for the Public Astronomy Sky Tours on the Friday and Saturday nights. Telescopes included high quality 18" and 30" telescopes as well as a 12½" binocular telescope, provided for the benefit of those attending this event.

Inclement weather experienced throughout most of Friday caused the organisers to cancel the public Sky Tours at the last moment so as to avoid crowds of people flocking to the facility in the extreme wet weather with very little chance of observing. Fortunately for some, the skies opened up for a few hours on the Friday evening, treating those who braved the trip to Border StarGaze to the experience of a lifetime through the 18" telescope and a 12½" binocular telescope provided for the public by 3RF Australia.

Saturday did not see that same luck however, with constant heavy rain plaguing all efforts to hold any further sky tours for those attending on the Saturday night.

2009 South Pacific Star Party wetter than ever!
The annual South Pacific Star Party (SPSP) is a major star party hosted by the Astronomical Society of New South Wales and is one which 3RF has supported for a number of years. For the past several years, 3RF has supported the SPSP by providing large telescopes for the public Sky Tours on the Friday and Saturday nights. We have also donated door prizes of free private observing sessions using some of 3RF's largest telescopes.

The 17th annual SPSP was a complete wash-out event in 2009, with rain and cloud preventing any observing. Spirits were kept high, however, with a number of daytime and evening activities planned to keep the hordes busy.

The 2010 SPSP will be held over the weekend of 14 - 16 May 2010.

3RF's Deepest South Texas Star Safari a Wild Success
In May, the 2009 “Deepest South Texas Star Safari” (DSTSS) was held near Coonabarabran, New South Wales. This exclusive event, now in it’s sixth year, is aimed at providing amateur astronomers from the US and Canada with not only an Australian cultural experience, but more importantly the unique opportunity to experience the grandeur of the southern night skies through large, high quality instruments without the need for them to transport large telescopes across the South Pacific themselves.

With over 30 participants regularly attending this event, we are able to book the entire 25-acre Warrumbungles Mountain Motel complex allowing us to have full control of the venue's on-site lighting to ensure that our visitors are treated to the best southern dark-sky experience possible.

Two New Telescopes
3RF’s two newest instruments saw “first light” at this year’s Deepest South Texas Star Safari:

A 30” f/4.5 telescope designed and built by Peter Read of SDM Telescopes in Australia; and

A new 22” f/4.5 binocular telescope - virtually identical to the impressive 22” binocular telescope at Comanche Springs Astronomy Campus - designed and built by Bruce Sayre of California

Testimonial:

I'm ETERNALLY, ETERNALLY in your debt for allowing me the privilege of seeing the wonders of the Southern Sky!!! My employer gives me a 8-week sabbatical leave every seven years, and I was eligible to take that time in February 2009. I'd been planning for years to include a week's solid observing of southern skies in Australia. The fly in the ointment was the logistics. Where should I go, to insure clear, dark skies? And more importantly, how do I insure access to a telescope at least as good as what I have at home--a 14" truss-tube Dob? Access to a good telescope was the real rub. I'd decided long ago that shipping my own scope to Oz was just not feasible, from both a cost and time perspective. I'd resigned myself to buying a 14" telescope in Australia, then selling it afterwards on E-Bay or elsewhere. And going to Alice Springs for observing.
Then I discovered the existence of the DSTSS.
*** WHAT A GODSEND!!! ***
This was exactly, EXACTLY, what I was looking for!! You provide the venue and scopes (and far better ones than I could EVER have hoped for, if I did this on my own!).
I was worried, as I know you were, that the event would be a complete wash-out, given the drizzly weather we had the first two days.
But then the skies cleared and we had six absolutely glorious nights of observing. I would have considered it well worth the journey just for the first night's observing. In fact, I'd say the sightseeing in Sydney made the trip worthwhile. The rest was all gravy.
I'm going to be back next year, if I possibly can!!

Article published in Amateur Astronomy #64 on the DSTSS

2010 DSTSS
The dates for the 7th Annual Deepest South Texas Star Safari 2010 have now been set, and will be held from 9-20 March, 2010, with observing scheduled for 12-19 March 2010. For further details, visit the OzSky website: www.OzSky.org.

First Light for 3RF's 30" f/4.5 SDM Telescope
The 2009 Deepest South Texas Star Safari held in May 2009 was notable for many reasons, including first light for 3RF 's new 30" f/4.5 SDM Telescope which made its debut at that event and quickly demonstrated that "Aperture Rules!"

Even on nights of average seeing, internal structure could be easily seen in objects like the Homunculus, while views of Omega Centauri and the Eta Carinae Nebula were simply breathtaking. For many people attending the DSTSS, the 30" telescope reperesented one more great reason to return to Oz for future 3RF events.

Fortunately, there was no sign of the dreaded "New Telescope Syndrome" where any new telescope uncovered for "first light" allegedly causes the skies to cloud over preventing any observing through that telescope on that night.

Double Vision through new 3RF 22" f/4.5 Binocular Telescope
3RF's new 22" f/4.5 binocular telescope, designed and built by Bruce Sayre of California, was unveiled at the Deepest South Texas Star Safari near Coonabarabran, NSW in May this year.

Binocular viewing is an addiction for many observers, and viewing through a pair of high-quality, twin 22" mirrors demonstrates why: transmitting to the observer's brain an intoxicating stereo view of the "Eye Candy" in which the Southern Sky abounds, from 47 Tucanae (NGC 104) to the Tarantula Nebula (NGC 2070), or simply crising through the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and taking in the extra-galactic globular clusters and emission nebulae.

Coming to the Southern Hemisphere to observe with a humble 10" telescope is a blast. Observing with telescopes like these provided by 3RF is simply unforgettable!