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View Full Version here: : Well I had my very own star party at home - leonids and a "clear" night


h0ughy
19-11-2006, 12:30 PM
that of course followed marking of a few exam papers (which I promptly got out of after the 3rd and 4th pages of the answer sheets were missing) so by 9pm I had the night to myself. I setup in the backyard wishing I was at kulnura with the other guys who will no doubt rub my nose in it for a good time and viewing they had.

the gear - well the trusty eq6 with the new V3 hand controller, the 5" MC as a guide scope and the ed80 with my 350D piggybacked on it and the 300d in the ed80, dew straps galore and a 200mm L series F2.8 lens and a Russian fish-eye lens. I must say the V3 takes a little gettng used to coming from the v2 controller, however it was accurate and 3 star alignment worked well.

Having been up the night before till 1 and then back up at 3.30-4.00 the morning, I will admit I was tired. But hey push on I say!! So I pushed too hard, staying awake through till after 5 this morning. I saw crappy conditions, with moments of great seeing. mainly the night air was moisture riddled and it showed, the skyglow was severe. as luck would have it I didn't catch any Leonid's in the camera, with them appearing after a 2minute shot was done, but I saw some pearlers. between shots. Very fast and man were they bright, but not consistent or many (I only counted 12 the whole night).

with the canon lens, that saw first light last night, as too the Russian fish-eye lens (first time I really used it). The wife said to me this morning when I went to bed, did I have a raging party by myself, in a way I did, although company would have been great just to share the experience:thumbsup:


Oh and BTW the last image is an example of not what to do, no polar alignment, no drift alignment, poor manual tracking crappy, skyglow, field rotation and poor digital developement:rofl: :rofl:

spacezebra
19-11-2006, 01:39 PM
Awww David, we wish we had known and we could have come up and kept you company. One shot looks like you have captured the aurora.

Cheers Petra

h0ughy
19-11-2006, 01:44 PM
no Petra it was high cloud and sky glow crap!:scared: BTW thanks for the offer, see you in January!

Dennis
19-11-2006, 05:30 PM
Hmm, you throw a mean party Dave - I must add the H0ughy Astrocamp to my astronomy calendar for next year! Nice report by the way, and boy, what a list of equipment. You must have spent ages setting it all up.

Conditions should have been good according to the jest stream maps, but in Brissie I found it remarkably ordinary, with just a few hints of sharp detail every now and then.

Cheers

Dennis

sheeny
19-11-2006, 06:11 PM
Good on you Dave. I got all excited and went out on Friday night just because it was clear and imaged until my batteroies were flat. Then Saturday night we had friends around for a barbecue dinner, ut I had every intnetion of taking the scope out afterwards and maybe having a look at the Leonids as well.

By the time we finished dinner, the sky was clouded over... oh well, I could've been drinking if I'd known!:lol:

Al.

jjjnettie
19-11-2006, 06:26 PM
Great report.
You know the others had a crap time without you.

h0ughy
19-11-2006, 08:06 PM
well what I really wanted was a platform for the canon and fisheye lens so i could track and image, but with a little bit of time to muck about with I should have drift aligned. i never even polar aligned, just compass and level. I should have known better, but I was so happy to be out and the wife knew about it but couldnt do much about it because I helped her. Needed some star port though! ;) :D

h0ughy
19-11-2006, 08:08 PM
to be honest i though they would have had a brilliant time and rub itin , but I think they were disappointed in the conditions, they forgot about me, sniff , sniff. :sadeyes: :sadeyes: ;) :whistle:

h0ughy
19-11-2006, 08:11 PM
i said to Tania that if she would like to have a glass of red while sitting out under the stars, waiting for a meteor, and have a chat. She didn't say no to the idea, but she was going to church with the kids and her mum so she declined, but did qualify that by saying she might have if they were not already committed to that:thumbsup: ;) there is hope yet:whistle:

Lee
19-11-2006, 08:28 PM
Sounds like my evening Houghy.... although I called stumps around 0130. The dew got pretty fiersome didn't it....
Love your moon photos. I'll probably have to stick to waxing crescents, not really a crack of dawn person!

h0ughy
20-11-2006, 09:00 AM
Well I normally only ever see dawn like this after an all-nighter, and that doesn't happen all that often;) my anti dewing system was in full swing;) , actually it was reasonably dry considering the lack of breeze to keep it at bay. I started to hear the water running in the downpipes at 1.30 am :D