3rd Kielder Forest Spring Starcamp 2008
28 March--6 April.
By Gary Fildes, Sunderland and Kielder AS member.  First appeared on UKAI website.

Well I thought I would write up a short summary of the event, I hope you find it interesting.

The event started on Friday 28th March, because of the impending opening of the new observatory, we had been given a pot of money to launch the facility to an audience that would not normally be held within the remit of the camp.

I tackled this in a few differing ways, 1 was to construct a scaled down version of the solar system, the idea being that students would be able to walk through the solar system visiting the planets, getting tuition en-route and seeing how weak a force gravity actually is. 3 school groups attended 3 different sessions and they loved it! we gave them sweets and pop and a talk on astronomy. On the third trip we had a clear sky so were able to observe the solar disk with a Ha scope, well you can imagine the response ,it was incredible and in some small way mad e what I have been doing for so long worthwhile.
We also held a talk on Light Pollution, Dr Chris Baddiley came up from cambridge to give the talk on the blights we face . My idea was to challenge local business people and make them aware how truly dark our skies here are and how they are a definite asset to our region and hobby. It was poorly attended despite many invites, this only makes me more determined to succeed.
The main event started to the all too familiar waterlogged site, we had around 50 pitches taken up. The Friday saw Peter Vasey give a talk on astro imaging for newcomers, also I had a group of scientists from Durham Uni arrive for a tour of the observatory, they were gobsmacked at the scale of this facility and are very keen to get involve...for a small fee of course....we shall see on that one. The day ended with trip to the anglers arms for a pint and dinner, at around 8pm the skies cleared, as did the pub, and clear it stayed till 2.30 a.m! god we needed this, it was awesome, some newcomers to the camp commented on how clear and dark it was. the seeing was abit strange restricting magnification to around 180x on an 18' scope, still M13 was naked eye, telescopically it was as wonderful as ever. The real treat however came the next day, could we possibly hope to have the 2 main nights clear?
Saturday dawned to whispers and comments on how good a night it was, then the cloud rolled in as did the snow. we had 2 guest speakers, Jurgen scmoll explained differing telescope designs highlighting various problems, an excellent talk. Secondly Gain Lee talked about observing distant Galaxies again an excellent speaker.
Well evening came and off to the anglers arms we went, the snow eased and the sky cleared and it stayed clear till dawn! I have observed here for many years this night was up there with the best of em. the seeing was much steadier and the transparency was incredible, regular visitors to dark skies will appreciate the starry deep glow you get from a true dark sky, well we had that as well as the zodiacal light( very faint). the objects were rattled off 1 by 1 Gain Lee with his 18" scope observed a distant galaxy 1bly distant a truly memorable sight.Over the way was Astrotrac ville and what a night we had with those some fabulous wide field shots of the rising milky way with NGC 7000 naked eye at 30 deg altitude..sleep came as did the frost and snow..what a night.
Regular visitors will be well aware of the limitations of this site however when the conditions are right it is incredible to observe from, I feel that so long a we continue our friendly approach to astronomy and get the occasional clear night then what with the new Observatory this event will run for a while yet.
Special thanks to, Kev, Richards, Albert and Lynn and many others too many to mention who all helped make this a memorable event. thanks for reading Gaz.