Observing weekend in Grandpré (France)

I hadn't been observing for a long time, so I was looking forward to the observing weekend organized by Murzim vzw, the astronomical association from Aalst, which took place from November 21 to November 23. This year, the members of VVS Capella, the astronomical association of Hoegaarden / Boutersem were also invited to join for a weekend full of astronomy. As we are members of both astronomical associations, we looked forward to seeing our friends again.

The days before the observing weekend, everyone was looking at the weather predictions. At some moments, the weather looked very promising, at other moments, it looked like we would not have an opportunity to observe at all. But because at an observing weekend you also learn a lot from other people even when it is too cloudy to observe, we picked up Lotte, our little daughter and we left for Grandpré. After a trip of 3 hours (it was sunny during a part of the ride), we arrived in Grandpré.

The house in Grandpré

We greeted the people who where already there and we installed ourselves in a spacious room. It was still dry outside, so after installing the baby bed, I started installing the 18'' Obsession telescope. More and more observers arrived while the sky became clearer and clearer. After a delicious meal (lasagna!) prepared by Marnik, we put Lotte to sleep and went outside to start observing. We started collimating the telescope, but found out that the batteries of the laser collimator where empty (that's what you get when your last observing session was so long ago). After a bit of troubles, we could collimate the telescope.

We now started to line up the argo navis digital setting circles, but found out that there was a problem with the azimuth readings of the argo navis (that's what you get when your last observing session was so long ago!). It was too dark to fix this, so we decided to observe without the argo navis. Unfortunately, by the time we were ready to observe, the clouds rolled in and we decided to stop the first observing night. With an SQM (Sky Quality Meter) value of 20.80 the sky was good, but not amazing. During the hours we were outside, there were some high clouds which made observing more difficult. All in all, we could observe only a few bright objects this night.

Lotte woke up around 7:30. We went for a walk to the village of Grandpré in order not to disturb the other observers. When we returned, everybody was awake and ready for breakfast. After breakfast, we went for a walk in the forests around Grandpré. We enjoyed walking in the autumn forest a lot. The sun started shining and it was so warm that we could take of our jackets. After the walk, I could localize the problem with the argo navis, but I didn't have the tools with me to fix it. After a nice meal, we prepared for a new observing night. This second night was much better than the first night. With an SQM value of 21.20, we saw how bright the Milky Way can be here. We started to observe our (too long) list with objects. After Sara went to bed, I started to sketch the Eskimo Nebula, NGC 2392. The humidity was very high (our papers were dripping wet), so after I finished the sketch, I decided to stop observing. After breaking up the telescope, the sky clouded out totally.

All observers of the Grandpré observing weekend. Photo by Marnik Van Impe.

The next day, we cleaned the house and left Grandpré around noon. Thanks to Guy, Luc, Lotte, Joost, Jean, Sara and Marnik for the successful observing weekend.

Conclusions : 

• Grandpré is a good observing location, not too far from home. Because of the humidity, we did not see the full potential of the observing site yet.
• I expected to have a better horizon at the observing site. Luckily, there is enough to see higher up in the sky. Should be taken into account when making an observing list for a next trip to Grandpré.
• The telescope should be better tested before going on an observing trip.
• Lotte behaved very good on her first observing weekend. She hopes that next time, she will have some little friends to play with.