Weekend at Mt. Bowen - Crago Observatory

[ourkind]

I had a ball this weekend looking at the stars and taking happy snaps at the Astronomical Society of NSW Crago Observatory at Mt. Bowen. Finally I had some clear skies. Anyone who believes this place suffers light pollution :screwy: and chooses to go elsewhere good! more space and telescope time for me!:lol:

here are my happy snaps.

1. My C11 XLT on HEQ5
2. I made a new friend
3. Self Portrait inside the Dome
4. Moon and Jupiter
5. Outside in the early morning just as Jupiter and the Moon made their appearance right between Pleiades and Orion.

[bazaud]

Great pics, What type of red light are you using on the C11 in the first picture?

Barry

[ourkind]

Thanks Barry, the red light reflecting on the scope is from the red diode on the heq5 that tells you it's switched on, and the red light reflecting on the counter weights is from the syncscan hand controller.

[bazaud]

Thanks Carlos.

[loki78]

They look great Carlos I'm glad you had such a good time. How many people were there, was it an organised event or you just went along on your own not knowing there would be other people there?

Also, what camera/lens/settings were you using for the photos?

[ourkind]

Thanks Jon, I knew some people would be there because I sent Ian Parr a quick text to make sure he'd open the gates.

All in all there was a pretty good turn-up 5 telescopes on the field and the big one in the dome. A few visitors without scopes came also to peek, anyone is welcome.

Camera used is a Canon 60D
Images 1, 2 and 3 settings were 18mm 20sec F/3.5 ISO3200
Image 4 - I'll need to check again
Image 5 18mm 10sec F/3.5 ISO 3500

Check out this link to my flickr account and notice I've added my images to a group called "ASTROMETRY" it is the coolest thing out. Basically it scans your photograph and and within an hour it highlights major stars and DSO's just by hovering your mouse over the image ... FREE!! I love it!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/70960426@N04/7969198128/in/photostream/

[loki78]

I had a look at the flickr, that's pretty cool.

What lens was it you were using? Was it an 18mm prime or a zoom at 18mm? Sorry for all the questions, I just love to know all the specifics of what people use to get what results :)

[ourkind]

Don't apologise :thumbsup: it's an EF-S 18-200mm Canon Lens - it does not have a red line around it so it's not high quality, but IMHO (finally learnt what that meant) I think it does a pretty decent job.