Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos
So next time you should hit something like the core of M8 or the Finger of God in NGC 3372 or even resolve every damned star in the Trapesium in M42  |
Yeah, and a closeup or two of those low flying pigs
In all seriousness, every second of airtime of those behemoths is already double and triple booked by professionals doing something boring like discovering which way this Universe is going to end.
I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time; best I can hope is to be around when there is a downtime of sorts (planned or unplanned), but which leaves the telescope fully functional - which really is highly unlikely.
What I
might do is to permanently install planetary camera on one of the unused ports (thing has 4 Nasmyth ports of which two have no derotators and are not of interest -so far- to professionals). It is far more likely to sneak in and get the scope for 5 minutes than to get a free reign to a multimillion dollar scope for a few hours. Pros don't care about nice pictures, but they are well aware of good publicity they generate in public.
So watch this space
