A number of observers showed up at the alternate site last night and stayed into the early hours of the morning (I was the first to leave at around 1:30am – I had to work today). While Mike, Kerry, and I imaged – others tried to determine just how much detail could be made out on various DSOs just looking through the scopes.

Clear skies, steady and calm after 10:30pm, no bugs, and a half dozen or so fellow observers – a good night.

The Omega (Swan) Nebula:

The moon (at 55.5% illumination):

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Update By KerryLH :

Was a great night out but got pretty chilly near the end. It was fun observing with everyone… we even had two non members join in with their scopes. It’s nice meeting new people that are into the hobby.

I spent most of my night photographing through my Sky-Watcher 80mm Equinox and using the c6-SCT as a guidescope.

M8 Lagoon Nebula By:Kerry
3x4min

M20 Trifid Nebula By:Kerry
3x3min

I’d have to say these are the best nebula shots that I have taken to date… thanks Tim for the motivation to get a couple more manually guided frames. I was a little disappointed in the chromatic aberration in some of the stars since I was using an APO but apparently I can easily get rid of it with processing. I guess not all APOs are equal.