Clear skies and an opportunity to go to Binbrook for observing – but of course it couldn’t be that easy. Yes, the sky was quite clear, but down closer to the ground we had a slight fog/haze and the half dozen or so of us observing were overcome by dew in just over an hour – despite a wind that was somewhat stronger than forecast and making stars jump around at any higher power. I managed to get about 20 minutes of imaging in before my telephoto camera lens dewed over – and even my Tuthill heated dew shield on my main scope couldn’t keep the dew away. But the sky was clear.

The following (drastically reduced) image of the Pleiades (M45) was taken with a Canon Digital Rebel XTi using an f/5.6 400mm apo telephoto lens piggy-backed on my main scope. A combination of 2x2min, 2x4min, and 2x6min at ISO800.

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?

Veil Nebula
Moon – Near Full
Moon – Crater Petavius

Any takers for Binbrook tonight?

CSC looks good – 1/2 moon sets around 12:17am – should be a good night for observing and imaging DSO’s – temperature should be about right for long sleeves (to keep the bugs down).

Update: The weather and mosqitoes were very coperative. Myself, Jackie, and Don showed for a very pleasant night of star gazing. I spent most of my time imaging – unfortunately, what I mainly had intended to image was within a few degrees of the rather bright moon. Jackie and Don seemed intent on finding as many faint planets as possible – I think there may have been some success with Uranus and Neptune – however, the question usually remained “Which of these stars is the planet?”. Finally, an attempt was made to locate the comet in Hercules. We finally packed in just after 2am – Don, still full of energy, wanted to go to Tim Horton’s – I opted for the 1/2hr drive home followed by rest.

It was a small turnout (not including the mosquitos) – but good company on such a nice warm summer night. The haze and mild wind kept me from doing any long exposures. I did manage to snap a few shots of M11 which I will post later. Despite the poor seeing conditions it was still worth the effort – especially since we got to see a number of very bright meteors streak across the sky.

– Tim

Note from Ben:

Yes, it was a good evening of stargazing–good in that we survived to tell the tale! The coyotes were yipping and howling somewhere in the park not too far away, perhaps warning us of the impending attack by the blood-thirsty vampire bugs known by some as mosquitoes. Or perhaps the coyotes were laughing at us? At any rate, we fought back with insect repellent and did the best we could to swat the miserable creatures into oblivion, but in the end it must be said that they defeated us as we high tailed it out of the park before midnight. We may have lost the battle, but we will not concede defeat in the wider war. Mosquitoes, WE WILL BE BACK!

Looks like the clouds over Hamilton are blowing away and skies should be clear by dark. A couple of us are heading to the Binbrook alternate site for some observing tonight. Probably be there around 9:30pm – it’s on Tyneside Rd – if coming from Hwy 6 – turn onto White Church (heading east) – it’s about 3 roads down – turn right (it’s the only way to go anyway) and go about 2.5km – we’ll be in a little parking lot on the left – if coming from Hwy 56 turn on to White Church or actually I think it’s called Binbrook road from this side (heading west) – turn left on Tyneside (again – it’s the only way to go) – same directions from here.

Update: The skies cleared – although there was a very slight shimmer when viewing Jupiter the visibility was otherwise good. Only 3 of us showed – so it was a quiet night except for the occasional passing car. I did some visual observing of Jupiter before turning my attention to imaging – capturing only 2 sets – starting with a few shots of the Ring Nebula in Lyra and then turned to M8 – the Lagoon Nebula. It is late and I have to work tomorrow – I will post the stacked and processed images to my gallery tomorrow evening.

I got up to Tobermory last night and immediately set up my scope. Just before some distant haze showed on the horizon I was able to snap a few more shots of Saturn and Mars with the Beehive Cluster. I’ll post the images to my gallery later, but for now here is a thumbnail comparison of last night and of 5 days earlier – Mars is really moving against the background.

It was another beautiful night up in Tobermory last night. Sounds like it turned out well at Binbrook too.

I spent most of the night imaging a couple of galaxies again – this time the Whirlpool Galaxy and the Pinwheel Galaxy. These were a little tricky, as they wouldn’t start to show in the camera until after a minute or so of exposure – so it took some time to focus and center them. I will post them to my gallery as I get them processed.

This is a 5 minute exposure @ ISO 1600 out across the lake from the vantage point of the telescope. The bright light on the island is a beacon 5km away – the closer smeared bright lights are stars reflecting off the water. The sky was amazingly bright with stars.

These are reduced images – I will post the full images to my gallery on Sunday.

It was a cold night – but clear and well worth going out for some observing. I don’t think I could have asked for a better weekend to have taken off to my Dad’s in Tobermory. For those that don’t know where that is – it ‘s on the tip of the Bruce Pennisula – surrounded on 3 sides by Great Lakes and only a narrow path of light polluted civilization leading to it.

I took the opportunity to try a few new items – my new guide scope and illuminated guiding eyepiece (purchased from Mike), and my new dew shield (no dew or frost problems with the main scope last night). I concentrated on Bode’s Galaxy and the Cigar Galaxy – and took 5 minute manually guided images (this was my first attempt at guided images). I have stacked and processed the Bode’s Galaxy (M81) sequence and will have others later. The weather is calling for similar conditions all weekend, so I will try different objects over the next few days.

A note on viewing ANY astrophoto’s on an LCD monitor – make sure your viewing angle is at least straight on or above or nebulosity will be drastically diminished (or possibly not visible at all). I actually had one person swear I sent them the wrong photo as they couldn’t see the object I was describing anywhere on the image – they were correct – their monitor was tilted on an angle that caused poor visibility – when viewed from an angle below the LCD monitor’s mid-point an entire galaxy had disappeared! (so fix the angle on your LCD monitors – you don’t want to be responsible for wiping out an entire galaxy!)

These are reduced images – I will post the full images to my gallery on Sunday.

Well, the clouds rolled in just after we arrived – then after about 1/2hr the wind did a 180 and the clouds rolled back out the way they came – and suddenly it was so bright I thought I should have brought a book to read by the moonlight.

I stayed with viewing planets, the moon, and star clusters – sky was too washed out for anything else. We got a chance to watch a moon rising from behind Jupiter (at first I thought it was just distortion – but it was too consistent and growing, so I called Mike over to look) and the rings of Saturn were reasonably clear too. Looking through Mike’s bino viewer at the craters and mountain ranges on the moon was also a treat – there were some interesting sites along the shadow line.

I only took a few images – mainly of Saturn and Jupiter. I have processed the Jupiter sequence and will get to the others later. Unfortunately I don’t have the mount for attaching my camera to a barlow yet so my images of planets tend to be lacking detail.

Well, it was a nice night at Binbrook – a half dozen or so members showed up with a variety of scopes and binoculars. I did my usual and spent most of the evening imaging – I haven’t processed any of the shots yet, but having glanced at the images as I downloaded it would appear I have good shots of Andromeda Galaxy, the Leo Trio Galaxies (M65, M66, NGC3628), the Sombrero Galaxy, the Crab Nebula, and M3 (globular cluster). Once I’ve had time to process the images I will post them. Anyhow, it’s been a late night and I’ve got work tomorrow.

Update Monday March 27/06
I’ve processed the Leo Trio and they turned out well with all 3 galaxies in the field of view this time. I’ve started with the others and will post them to my gallery tonight. Andromeda, which was rather low on the Western (or North Western?) horizon, is seriously lacking contrast and in the end did not turn out to be a very good – only the core showed to an appreciable amount.