--- Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> wrote:
Thank you for the great information. Do you think I might be able to photograph it tonight with my 12"?
I don't know for sure, maybe someelse in this listserv can jump in. For the visual (not photographic) limit, by playing with a Schaefer limiting magnitude calculator (assuming we're treating this as a point object and not an extended object), it looks like the stellar magnitude limit in a mag 5.5 sky for a 12" SCT is around 14.1-14.3 at 100x. In a 6.0 sky, it drops down to around 14.4-14.5 at 100x. Patrick's 14" reaches a little lower to mag 14.8. See Schaefer limiting magnitude calculator at: http://www.go.ednet.ns.ca/~larry/astro/maglimit.html Photographically, you get more light grasp as compared to the human eye. (Up to 1 or 2 mags more.) I do not have the equation for photographic limiting magnitude in front of me. If you have a copy of Covington's _Astrophotography_ handy, there is a table in the back and an equation. I'd have to look it up and post later. My speculative guess is - no - the sn will have dimmed more as compared to Patrick's picture on Wednesday night - and it is at the (visual) limit for 12" of SCT aperature. - Enjoy Canopus56 (Kurt) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com