An advanced party consisting of Brian, Jo and Gordon took station at Fieldview in East Barsham during Thursday and set up their two Meade 200 on the back lawn.  Their vanguard action was rewarded by an exceptionally clear night while other observers were still sweating out the rest of the week.  It was fair hunting ground for the usual favorites in the Messier list and also NGC objects as confidence grew and instruments behaved.  Dew however was a problem even with shields and heaters. The rest of the observing party (Pete, John B, John H, David, Pierre, Mike, Kevin) arrived during Friday afternoon while Mark caught up with us at the White Horse Inn for supper.   Fortunately for our main goal, we did not spend too much time at the table and were soon back at Fieldview.  On our way back, we were confronted by a first quarter moon surrounded by a beautiful corona.  This was a curse in disguise as we had travelled in the afternoon through the developing clouds of an advancing front.  Were we far enough East?   How active would the front be?   We would know the answer to this soon enough.

Back at Fieldview, we started to plant the various bits of equipment on the lawn: David’s spotterscope, our host’s Dobsonian, Mark’s equatorial newtonian and the four driven camera platforms of John H, John B, Pete and Pierre.  It took me a while to set up my platform as Polaris was playing mouse to a slow moving patch of cloud.  Mackerel cloud did not prevent some of us seeing a brilliant -2 mag. Piscid meteor disintegrate into several fragments in Camelopardus.  Eventually, all was well and operational by 2130.  The sky was ‘kinda catchy’ at first but we were playing along following its every move.  As moths are attracted to light, we must have seemed like annoying insects to the gods of old, Jupiter and Saturn.  For at any time during the evening, instruments were pointed towards them and for good reasons too.   Although the first quarter moon was low in the Southwest and not due to set until around 2330, the stalled bank of cloud was arresting most of its light and the clear skies over us were fairly unaffected.  Brian was not having a good time as the Meade computer failed to find the objects he was requesting.  Major muttering was confirming a very frustated observer recovering from a clear sky overdose, the night before.  All would become so clear with the return of daylight.  Gordon was having more success with man and machine working in harmony.

Meanwhile, everybody was pursuing their own enterprise.  Mine was fairly simple: mind my camera platform and watch the skies.  My aim was to shoot the rest of a roll of Fuji 1600 super HG.  Slow films are my creed and this departure was pure adventurism.  The results out of the developing tank the following day would prove me wrong.  Events were taking over on Jupiter with a shadow transit of Ganymede.  The shadow was spotted deep in the south polar region soon after it entered the disk of Jupiter and we followed it close to transiting the Central Meridian.   It was a cold damp night and observers retired slowly until Gordon, John B and Pierre were left.  I was determined to finish my film and even with one-minute exposure, it was taking its time. Then, there is always this nagging doubt where the frame counter is showing #38 and the spool is still advancing.  Did the film strip slip the winding spool?   Relief !! No more advancing! The night is in the bag.   Saturday morning confirmed the weather forecast.  Blue skies were now well East of us and rain would follow.  Fieldview is well known for its hearty English breakfasts and this would be item #1.  Time to reflect on the night past and organise the agenda for the day.

Brian found the reason for his lack of success the night before: the Meade tripod had been bumped into or, more seriously, been moved deliberately.  This almost resulted in the start of a criminal enquiry! He had to go through the whole routine of rough alignment which would prove to be a vain pursuit.

North Norfolk offers a variety of small market towns as well as seaside resorts.   Wells-next-the-sea would be the destination for two small parties.  Priority #1 was to get my fast film developed and printed FAST.  We found this 1hour lab which, after hearing the nature of the photographic subject decided that 3hours was more appropriate.   We had plenty of time on our hands, shops to browse in, lunch to get, pubs to visit and we had to keep dry as the rain was now coming down.  The afternoon soon frittered away and we knew there would definitely be no play under the stars later.  The second appointment with supper at the White Horse Inn came unnecessarily early, but we were ahead of the Saturday night crowds and were served promptly.

With so much time to spare, I went through my prints, referring to the records I had made.   Fuji 1600 super HG displayed no grainy structure but had a slight green tinge.  The red sensitivity lacked a little as the image of the North America Nebula showed.  Stars down to mag +9 were well recorded with a 1-minute exposure.  My low-tech 24-hour clockwork drive surpassed itself in providing pinpoint images.  The only disappointment I had on first inspection was that a mag-1 meteor had evaded the edge of a field in Lyra and the end result was that I had ‘to eat my hat’ in front of Pete.  The rise of the Pleiades and Hyades with their moving stars (planets) was well documented and looked as spectacular as the real thing.  Obscure fields in Draco and Camelopardus needed the help of ’Starry Night’ running on a couple of laptops to identify positively.  This led me to discovering an unnamed asterism in Draco at RA 18h36, Dec. +72°23’ which I now know as the ‘Foxcub’.  It bears a resemblance to the M of Vulpecula but much smaller.  Pete will have to wait some more before his unfinished photographic canvas is released from his camera.  Brian promises us the results of his Thursday night observations soon.  There will be more images to remember this Norfolk Observing Weekend 2000 by and there are some good memories too.

Pierre Girard