[AZ-Observing] Re: Antennas site over the weekend - and Saddle Mtn too, sort-of

  • From: "Matt" <mluttinen@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2007 15:21:30 -0700

Well,

I'm glad someone got some observing in.

Last night at Saddle Mountain was pretty much a bust.  It was windy, windy,
windy.  Between equipment malfunctions and other minor disasters (AJ's 12v
DC cigarette lighter adapter lost the spring loaded center contact, and
someone I shall not name dumped battery acid  all over the bed of his truck
on the trip out), there was little else to do but commiserate on the leeward
side of my van.

AJ did get a few observations after I loaned him the adapter from by CB, and
Richard got some wide-field shots with his Canon 5D, but that was it.  Of
course, we had some great conversation, and that is what always saves events
that turn out like this.

There was a discussion of the merits of the site itself.  The preliminary
conclusion is that it suffers from a few flaws, most notably that the
headlights of west-bound traffic sweep the field for 5 seconds or so.  This
happened several times last night.  Also there was comment about the
distance from the freeway - closer would be better. So the site is not bad,
but definitely not perfect.

In the end, we were heading back toward the great light-dome by 10PM. Maybe
next weekend.

Nuts!

Matt



-----Original Message-----
From: az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Steve Coe
Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2007 12:03 PM
To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Antennas site over the weekend

Howdy all;
 

Dave Fredericksen and I made our way out to the Antennas site and watched
the trees roll around in the breeze as we drove to the site.  The good news
is that it did die off nicely about 9:30 and we observed a pretty wide Milky
Way and I took photos with my new Canon Xt camera on the barn door tracker.
At about 11 or so I had to know if I was getting decent results, so I fired
up the laptop and David and I saw that the stars were small, and it sure did
look like Sagittarius and Lyra.  I observed with the 6" refractor for a
while, shot a few more "photos" and fell into the sleeping bag around 2 AM.

 

We awoke to clear, but breezy, day and the wind never completely went away.
Saturday night Rich Walker drove in and we chatted over sandwiches in the
twilight.  I shot more photos and laid down for a nap about midnight.  I set
the alarm and woke at 4:30 to a beautiful conjunction of the Moon, Venus,
Saturn and Regulus in Leo.  It was beautiful in all forms-naked eye,
binoculars and in the scope.  After about two dozen shots with a variety of
focal lengths the battery went dead and I went back to sleep for a few hours
until we awoke, tore down and drove home.

 

I think I learned a valuable lesson.  Because I was trying to both observe
and shoot pictures I did not do either one to my satisfaction.  The images
turned out OK, but some are out of focus and if I was not in a hurry to get
back to observing I probably would have double checked focus before opening
the shutter.  In the same way, I got interrupted while observing by the
timer telling me to close the shutter on the image.  I think in the future,
I will choose one activity or the other.

 

But, we had fun;

 

Steve Coe

 

 


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