[AZ-Observing] LBT Fun!

Hi All-
Early this month I was able to arrange a trip to the LBT observatory on Mt
Graham with project scientist John Hill.  His reason for going up was to
give a tour to the docents from Safford's Discovery Park science center. 
Currently it looks like:

http://alice.as.arizona.edu/~ketelsen/LBT0508sm.jpg

You can see instrument scientist Ray Bertram working on the red prime
focus filter wheel at left.  Access to the prime instruments means riding
up a swaying sissors lift up nearly 30 feet, which doesn't look like very
much fun from the floor.  Scattered around are various tour takers. 
They've installed covers near the hydrostatic bearings in the 11 months
since I've been there - the floor was a LOT less oily than last time!

My reason for going up was to take a night-time animated GIF sequence from
inside the dome.  I had already tried a year ago, but a fast-moving
snowstorm  killed the attempt that night, though I picked what lens to use
(Canon 10-22 zoom at 10mm and f/3.5) and I got a sequence of the scope
moving from zenith to horizon:

http://alice.as.arizona.edu/~ketelsen/LBTw10mm.gif

This time some thin clouds threatened, but it cleared after sunset and I
got this:

http://alice.as.arizona.edu/~ketelsen/LBT.gif

It looks pretty confusing, but is really sort of neat.  The individual
frames are 6 minutes, and I've not had time to do anything with them - not
even dark subtraction, but at nearly freezing, there really aren't any hot
pixels that stand out.  The frames that show the light pollution is from
Fort Grant when the scope is pointed towards the south.  Don't forget that
the building tracks with the telescope, but is only accurate at the
elevation where the telescope is looking.  That is why the stars trail in
the sequence - the telescope isn't pointed in that direction...  Also, the
stars appear to trail in opposite directions when pointed north or south
(don't forget I'm looking out the dome in the opposite direction of the
scope).  The observer was doing REALLY short exposures of bright galaxies
(like M81, M82, M65, etc) and resolving stars, looking for cepheid
variables.  Just this morning I've asked for some subframes to post - they
were really looking great - but the longest they could expose on M81 was
60 seconds!

Hope you enjoy!

-Dean
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