2004.12.13
Bob and I went out to the Valle Grande and set up the telescope on one of the pullouts along highway 4. While Bob did the polar alignment (using the STV this time instead of an illuminated reticle eyepiece) and a bunch of visual observations of M81, I set the camera up on a tripod and did long exposures of the Gemenid meteor shower. Tonight was the peak of the show, and the frequency of meteors was high enough that my odds were good of getting something in frame. Here is a humorous accidental shot of Comet Machholz:
 |
One of the meteor star trail shots. That star in the lower-center looks a
bit fuzzy... I mistakenly got Comet Machholz (C/2004 Q2) in frame. Cool effect...
|
I did manage to get a very good picture of a meteor, which I added to the highlights gallery:
Once Bob was content with his visual observations, we transferred over to doing piggyback photography now that I had the Hartmann Mask method for correct infinity focus on my 50mm lens. The polar alignment was really odd - either something is wrong with the STV PA instructions that we have, or Bob managed to hit the polar alignment spot on in both azimuth and elevation during his "rough" wedge adjustments. The STV showed no error at all after five minutes on both axes.
Anyway, I framed Orion in the camera viewfinder and we let the exposure run for 25 minutes. The results were stunning. I've made a gallery highlight page for this shot as well:
On a whole, the evening was a huge success and we had a great time. There were no real technical problems to be worked and we got to do lots of observing. Also, we're getting pretty good at setting up and taking down the scope - it doesn't take much time at all. Now that the focus issues for piggyback are worked, I expect to get a lot more of these wide-field shots to come out well in the future. For the time being we're taking a moratorium on observing until the next new moon cycle - we both have a lot of work to do.