Now that I have got the hang of the basics, and borrowed a better camera (thanks Eric), last nights NightSkiesNetwork 'live' broadcast was a lot easier and successful than my previous attempts.
During a very frustrating night, commencing at 8:30pm the cloud came in the moment I finished doing my 3 star alignment.
Not to be put off, I waited for another 15-20 minutes until a sucker hole opened up and allowed me to spend a good bit of time getting sharp focus on some stars.
As soon as I was happy with focus, the clouds closed in again
It was another half hour before I was able to see sky again so I quickly went to Omega Centauri and put it up on the screen for all the world to see.
But it wasn't to last. I was getting 30 second spurts of clear between long minutes of cloud.
I moved to a few different objects chasing clear parts of the sky. I managed to briefly show 47Tuc Globular, Jewelbox Cluster, NGC 253 Silver Coin Galaxy, and Tarantula Nebula. This sucker hole chasing went on until about 1:00am. That's when the cloud came in thick and strong
I could see by the viewers list that I had quite a lot of people tuned in watching, so I did my best through cloud to give them something to look at.
This pattern went on for the next few hours until the sky started giving several longer periods of clear. The viewers list had grown even larger!
By this time other NSN broadcasters from around the world had all joined in and were helping me get my audio working so I could talk to everyone about what they were seeing.
When it was finally working Sergio in Florida laughed at my Aussie accent
At the views, the usual comments were made by people seeing southern sky objects for the first time: ooooooooo . . . aahhhhhhhh . . . wowwwwwww . . .
Fortunately, and with a lot of patience, especially by the viewers, we ended up getting some reasonable views of the Tarantula Nebula and other small nebulae and star clusters throughout the Large Magellanic Cloud Galaxy, and I forget what else because I was getting very tired.
Kevin, a U.S.A viewer, asked to see the Keyhole Nebula in Carina Nebula so I pointed the scope at it and left it there for quite a while as even more new viewers kept coming in. Brian (Scout) stuck a screen grab here:
http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthrea...99#Post4013751
The rest of the morning is a blur from tiredness
At 5:30am heavy fog rolled in and my computer crashed. I think it was a sign to pack it in for the night
I'm glad I was able to show just a few of our Southern objects through cloudy conditions and in a brightly moonlit sky.
Once this lousy weather goes away I will broadcast a lot more objects. Next broadcast will be with a Focal Reducer at f2.5 (last night was at f5).
Thanks to all of you that were watching, and a big thanks to Jim Turner for providing a site for us to share our skies:
http://www.nightskiesnetwork.com/ 