Greetings from Cairds

[Carole]

Friday evening there was Roger myself and Julian turned up after dark.  It was a beautiful clear night but windy so Roger and l had previously built ourselves an area with the pod one side, my van the other and Roger's car in front to try to protect ourselves and the kit from the wind.  I think it eased off a bit later on and the guiding seemed OK.   However today the wind is really bad so l doubt l will image tonight.  Tempted to come home early, but don't want to abandon Julian and leave him on his own. 

Roger has learnt a lot and coped pretty well. But was unable to focus the DSLR mainly because l don't think he could find a bright star. He is learning fast the frustrations of imaging.

[Hugh]

Hi Carole

Can you ask Roger to contact me when he gets home.  It is about the ETX he gave me at the last meeting.

Thanks

Hugh

[Carole]

He left this morning Hugh.  I'll try to text him.

Carole

[Carole]

Well I tried to image Saturday night but the wind was just awful and I kept missing targets, so gave up and had a look through Julian's Dob instead.  We had a visitor as the ladies in the caravan next to Julian happened to mention to their son that there were astronomers at the camp and the son drove over from his village with his scope to get some practical help on using it and also had a look through Julian's Dob.  Julian too gave up because of the wind so we both had an early night.

On Friday I had been trying to get a galaxy in Ursa Major and did a GOTO but the galaxy was no-where to be seen, so I did a slew around and found something fuzzy.  Presuming that was it I set up an imaging run.

The following day when I looked at my data the core was bright and elongated in the 600sec images but all the stars were round.  I looked at the shorter RGB subs and they didn't seem too bad.  Then I realised that the "galaxy" had moved.  It wasn't a galaxy at all I had inadvertently captured a comet.  Looking on the internet, I think it might have been 41P. 

So will make an animation once I have sorted out my subs.

Was looking at next month's Speaker's topic - How to discover a supernova without even trying.  Well this is How to image a comet without even trying.  Ha ha.

Carole

[Hugh]

Will look forward to the animation Carole.  10 out of 10 for effort!

Best

Hugh

[ApophisAstros]

Hi all just some pics from cairds,

http://gallery.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/displayimage-1657.html
http://gallery.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/displayimage-1660.html
http://gallery.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/displayimage-1661.html

Roger

[Carole]

Thought I'd post up the photos with explanations (Thanks Roger):

When I arrived the ground was a bit soft and I could not get into my parking space as I was skidding, so this is Pete hooking me up to the tractor for 2nd lap of the tow.  Ground did dry out a bit after that though another huge campervan got stuck in the evening and Pete had to tow them too.



Photo of Sat24 just before it cleared, I don't think Julian had arrived at this stage, and Roger and I were exasperated to see we were the only spot in the whole of our area of the South of England with cloud over us.



Roger's new imaging kit:
ED120, SW focal reducer, Modified DSLR and the latest version of the EQ6 (some nice improvements).



Carole

[The Thing]

Sounds really good fun Carole and Roger. Look forward to seeing your comet Carole!

[MarkS]

Good report - sounds like you had "fun" in more ways than one!

Mark

[Carole]

Two more photos, which I had to retrieve from my DSLR which was still inside the cupboard in the van until today.

Julian's kit - both our vans and my kit to the far right.



and a close up on Julian's self built Dobsonian:

[Fay]

Carole you do lead an eventful life!!!!! very funny the bit of cloud, and the tow!!!!!

well you seem to have got something out of it, and the weekend has got you on track again

Fay

[Carole]