Thank you for looking and leaving your words of encouragement and appreciation.
All in all, it was quite a trying session; a roller coaster ride of hope and frustration. I used the bright stars of Procyon and Gomeisa in Canis Minor to GoTo and Sync on, on my way to NEO 2010 AL30 but was dogged by clouds in the N and NE, right where the NEO was visiting!
After enjoying the luck of the Irish early on, to grab these 2 opportunistic frames, I loitered until almost 1:00am hoping for clearer conditions. Mars and Crux were magnificent in the (clear!) E and S respectively, but a dogged cloud bank blanketed the N and NE, its front edge straddling Procyon and Gomeisa, just keeping the NEO out of sight.
I was pleased that the C9.25 at F6.3 managed to record the faint trail of the mag 16.4 NEO as I had failed with the Mewlon 180 at F9.6 on another (mag 16.8) object in 2009. Although I easily recorded stars between mag 17 and 18, the light from these rapidly moving NEO’s is spread out along their trail – if only they would pause and pose!
Good luck to those who are going out tonight to view or record this fast, fleeting object.
Cheers
Dennis