April 16, 2007
My first star party, and I was planning on not taking the scope, but just going to see how it all worked. I was convinced by a few people that I would regret that if the sky cleared… so somehow I managed to load all my Astro gear into my tiny Ford Ka.
Great weather on the drive up to Kelling Heath. Warm, sunny, looking good…. then I turned off the main road and down near the camp site, the sea fog just hung over the entire area.
(All images taken with kind permission from the UK Astroimaging forums )
The fog did clear during the afternoon for a while:
But as the sun fell slowly towards the horizon, the fog rolled in again. Everyone covered their scopes, took all their electronic kit into their tents, and started to plan for a “social” evening.
About 10.15pm, I suddenly became aware of something hapenning in the field. The lights in the tents were going off one-by-one, and the sound of Meades powering up (BEEP) and slewing to targets (whhhhhhiiirrrrr). I looked up to see that the fog was clearing. Great stuff!
Within 20 minutes or so, the sky was clear(ish). The NS8GPS performed perfectly all night, the GOTO putting the objects in the eyepiece every time. This was my first really dark sky, and not knowing how long the fog would stay away, I went through the Messier list and managed to visually spot 22 M objects, before my first power tank was drained. Why did it drain so quickly? Ah, that will be the fog again. My dew tape was on full the whole time… it had to be. Anything less and the correcter plate would dew up instantly. My eyepieces were also dewing up quickly, so much so that I had a charcoal hand warmer in my coat pocket, and had three EPs in use in rotation: One on the scope, 2 in my pocket de-dewing.
The dew stayed managable for about 4 hours, then rolled in again at about 2.15am. I decided to call it a night and pack up. My first star party was over (I could only stay the one night) but it was everything I had been expecting. The only two downers were that it was too wet to do any imaging, and the big downer on the Monday was finding that my laptop was dead, even though I did not actually remove it from the car the whole weekend.
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on Kelling Heath, April 007
March 29, 2007
Some more images, but these were taken BEFORE I realised that the RA tracking rate for the moon needs to be different than the rate for the other planets… which kind of cured my “moon sliding out of camera view” issue I was having. Doh!
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on Doh! Tracking rates :)
March 27, 2007
Hey, two days in a row with decent overnight weather 🙂
Moon
Venus
Saturn
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on NS8GPS – Second Light
March 26, 2007
OK, so the weather did not do its usual trick of tipping it down with rain, and so I actually got to go out and play with my new toy. Setp was a breeze… level the tripod, place OTA on tripod, point the OTA downwards slightly, turn it on, select GPS sync, align star #1, align star #2…. done…
Most of the evening was getting used to the new handset and options, but I did manage to squeeze in some imaging later in the evening.
NS8GPS + Meade LPI
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on NexStar 8 GPS – First Light
March 24, 2007
OK, so last weekend I popped into my local scope shop, and was faced with an offer that was to good to miss. Ex-demo, brand new, never left the shop, Celestron NexStar 8 GPS for WAAAY less than it should be. After thinking about it for a split second, I took it…. well, I would of if anyone was around to actually say that I could have it at the price they were telling me. I had to come back today to collect it…. and here it is, complete with dew strip + controller, telrad (plus dew pad), and a inside/outside thermometer stuck on the fork arm (with the “outside” part pushed under the correcter plate dew strip).
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on A new toy
March 6, 2007
During most of March, I have been hassling the members of the UpstateAstro user group on Yahoo about a whole load of issues. Despite the vast number of Noob questions, I obtained great answers from everyone who replied. Many thanks to all of you!
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on Upstate Astro
March 4, 2007
After the weather playing up all day, the sky cleared to an inky black and transparent view, just perfect for the Lunar eclipse. I set up in my back garden and awaited the event
Despite the Lunar eclipse looking great by eye, I still hadnt quite got to grips with the scope, mostly because the ETX90is f/13 and I also did not have a focal reducer,so trying to find the moon when its dark against a dark sky meant that…err… I lost it :). So, I just sat there and watched the whole event. It was glorious, the moon turned more and more coppery red, with a whiteish area.
I did get some images before and after the event. All images taken with ETX90EC+, Meade LPI, post processed in Registax v4
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on Lunar Eclipse
February 24, 2007
After a disgraceful 3 years of it sitting in my spare room, I finally got the Meade ETX90 out and started using it. This was mostly prompted by a friend of mine called “G” who posted some images of his (and others) onto a newsgroup I read, which spurred me on to get out there and use the kit.
I never thought it would be quite as addictive as it is. The first few times out were a very steep learning curve, working out how to align the scope, level it, find true north, doing the star alignment, but the first time it “all comes together” and you can select an object on the GOTO handset and it appears in the eyepiece is just amazing 🙂
Shortly afterwards, the spending started. Its all very well being able to view celestial objects with your own eyes, but when someone asks you what you did last night, just saying you ad seen the moon or Saturn or a DSO just doesnt convey the experience to anyone else. So, while I was in California, I managed to pick up some items (at half the UK price!). Starry Night Pro Plus 6, which makes life for an Astro-Noob like me very easy, and a Meade LPI camera so I can take images of the moon and the planets to show people.
So, here I am, learning quietly by myself, and enjoying every moment of it 🙂
EDIT: The day after I purchased the LPI, I was offered a Meade DSI-C for a great price, and snapped that up. Thanks “G” 🙂
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on Getting started
February 1, 2007
I`ll get posting just as soon as I can work out what the hell I am doing here 🙂
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on First post
