Well, it was a relatively clear night again – some haze patches floated by – but for the most part clear. The observing session started with a very promising sign – I had set up the telescope in my brother’s backyard in the heart of Guelph during daylight hours. I had never setup there before and had to guess roughly where Polaris would be – when night came and I went to do the alignment I discovered that Polaris was already in the main scope’s FOV at 63x power and only required minor fine adjustments. Unfortunately the dew set in within a half hour – even with the dew shield. Since I had access to 120v power I decided to fight back at the dew with the help of an occasional blast from a hair dryer – and managed to get about 3 hours of observing and imaging in. I used my broadband pollution filter for the first time doing imaging and took a number of 30sec, 2min, 4min, and 6min exposures of the Veil Nebula through my guide scope while guiding through my main scope (a practice I am finding myself doing more and more lately – gives nice wide field images). I then turned my attention to the very present, near full moon – and took images through my guide scope and then my main scope.
Anybody know where to buy a 12v travel hair dryer?
