Re: [Utah-astronomy] Gravel Pit tonight (Friday)
I must have had the most misgivings about the cloud cover, among the five of us at the gravel pit Friday night-Monday morning. But then it largely cleared, although clouds slid in from time to time. Everybody had a great experience, I think, but mine was delayed until the others had gone home. I had numerous glitches, starting with my go-to capability seeming to have gone to -- well, you know. I had set the approximate lattitude and roughly accounted for magnetic declination, then used the "easy align" procedure. The scope said I was aligned but it was so far off I couldn't easily find anything (yes, yes I should know the night sky better than I do.) At last I used the "one star" alignment method and discovered that I was off on both lattitude and north-aiming. With that corrected my scope aimed at anything I wanted to see, without a problem. Also, somewhere along the line my GPS unit had a terrible time getting a reading, then that cleared up. So by the time people were going home not long before moonrise, I started rolling. Then I checked my collimation, and thought it was horribly awry. Here's the humorous part: I think my main problem with that was that I was unprepared for how a hugely out-of-focus image would look with my extreme (f/3.3) reducer in place.) Also, I had all separator elements of the reducer on, when I only wanted one. So I tried to collimate, which only threw everything off much worse. In the end, I managed to get a few photos despite this set of mistakes. I have posted a view of M81 I took then, on the astrophoto page that Cynthia Blue provides for our group; it's the latest thing in my album. I had to trim out badly focused stars beyond the galaxy, which resulted from the problems with collimation and spacers. Also, the view was so grainy that I reduced it to 50 percent of the original size. This was only my second time out with the SBIG-402 and I hope to improve as time goes on. Guy is going to build a rack so I can mount my guide scope on top of the main telescope. Then I should be able to take much better guided photos. Meanwhile, I'm having fun and profiting by learning from my mistakes. The gravel pit really is a nice place to set up, with the bucolic countryside and a fine unobstructed expanse of the heavens. We heard deer whistle and horses whiney. But I have to admit, it got pretty cold. About 3:55, as I was working on a view of the great galaxy in Andromeda, the first hint of dawn just wiped out all contrast and I quit. Strangely enough, the about third-quarter moon did not put out enough light to bother me as much as I expected when I worked toward the north. Light either from SLC or the moon did reflect off a thin cloud cover and I think that made its way onto part of my M81 photo. In the morning, as I was driving along the pit road toward the highway, two deer were to the right, in the narrow space between the road and a barbed wire fence. When I drove up, one immediately leaped over the fence, in an amazing agile way -- I'd seen it before, but it is always surprising. The fence was pretty high and without taking a run, the deer just stretched up and jumped over like a cat jumps onto the kitchen counter. The second deer wasn't as confident about jumping and ran along the road for a stretch, and I worried it would bolt in front of my Jeep. Instead, it watched the fence as it ran, found an arch in the lower strand and ducked through in a flash. -- Best wishes, Joe
--- Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> wrote:
The gravel pit really is a nice place to set up, with the bucolic countryside and a fine unobstructed
expanse of the heavens. We heard deer whistle and horses whiney. . . . .
Last December, a friend and I set up on the roadside of Peoa highway a bit west of gravel pit for some lunar viewing. At that time of the year, the Moon is at about 60° altitude and the still, clear, 25°F winter air allows especially crisp images. We wrapped the eyepiece in a dew heater and ourselves in wool blanklets. About an hour in, a horse that had escaped from a nearby field comes running up, no doubt curious about what the two-legged beasts were up to. I'm just shy of 6' and the horse and I were about eyeball to eyeball. Rather than spook the horse with rapid movements, my friend and I quietly sat trading some more eyepiece time. Unfortunately, this only made the horse more curious. He nuzzled his head in between us, trying to figure out why we were so intently staring at this big tube. At this point, we surrendered the scope to our roadside star party "visitor" and retreated to the car. He spent another five minutes examining the tube. My attempts to show the horse the craters Tycho and Copernicus were unsuccessful. Eventually, the horse concluded that the tube was not edible and withdrew a few meters away and started munching on a tuft of frozen grass sticking out of snowbank. There he remained a peaceful nighttime companion for the rest of the night. - Canopus56 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Thanks, what a great story! It really is an interesting place. We heard a meadowlark, and before it got dark a lizard came up to have a look at us. It must not have been around people much because it was not spooked at all when I put my hand near it. I like the location, for when I don't want to drive far in order to set up. -- Joe
participants (3)
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Canopus56 -
Joe Bauman -
Olhomorto@aol.com