Hi All,
The 11th Messier Night near Heathcote, VIC turned out to be a great success, my wife and daughter enjoyed the "Sky for the Night" tour conducted by Perry Vlahos and the views through the telescope later at night.
The highlights for the night through my 22" SDM Dob were the detailed spiral arms of M83, dust lanes of NGC 4945 in Centaurus, the core of NGC 3115 in Sextans, NGC 6369 Planetary and the first sight of Shapley 1.
The wide-field images are attached and the time lapse is here:
50MB Hi-res version:
http://users.on.net/~che/time-lapses/2011/ASV2011-720.mp4
Low bandwidth on vimeo:
http://www.vimeo.com/20769882
In the time lapse the green sky-glow becomes very evident later at night and I think I can see the thin layer of smoke hovering in the sky, which would explain lower contrast at the eye-piece. Also I had an insect land and stay on the front lens element. I tried to clone the dark spot out as best as I could but it is still quite noticeable at the top-left.
Thanks again to ASV for the terrific effort in organising this event.
Cheers,
Alex
