Observing Session - Tonight 11th Dec

[Mike]

Guys,

I am going to go straight to the field at High Elms tonight and cut out the pub to give me time to set up my imaging kit. Looks like it is going to be a really good night. See you there.

[MarkS]

I'm very jealous - I can't make tonight.  Have a good time.

P.S. Mike & Jim, thanks for your advice about the need for collimating my C11 - I successfully star-test-collimated it last night.

[Rick]

...and yet again I end up working late on a potentially good observing night. Hope it goes well.

[Mike]

Well despite the temperature droppping to -3 Degrees C it was a successful night. We were able to look at all kinds of objects. I took my imaging kit down there to try the challange of finding some asteroids. Jeff just happened to have brought along some imaging details for Ceres and Flora so I imaged those at around 21:00 and we then compared the star field to Jeff's notes and what I could see in The Sky 6 to ascertain which of the dots we thought was Ceres and Flora. Then once we had taken the image at 22:00 we were able to blink compare the two to see the asteroids (minor planets). We were correct as the two dots previously identified had clearly moved a way across the FOV. I quite enjoyed doing that as it was a bit of a challange, especially with numb fingers and a layer of ice across all of the kit.

I will create some animated GIF's of the two asteroids and post them up here when I get a chance.

[doug]

     You did yeoman service last night, Mike, what with shivering and iced-up fingers.  Well done, and I look forward to seeing your animations.

[Mike]

Well done to you Sir and Madam for suffering the -3 Degrees C temperature and watching the images unfold before your eyes.

Animations are now posted in the 'Astrophotography' section.