What's the word I am looking for?.... Oh, yeah.... A W E S O M E !!!! Mike, you do incredible work! Richard Harshaw Cave Creek, Arizona Brilliant Sky Observatory -----Original Message----- From: az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alan Strauss Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2011 11:18 AM To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: NGC1499 - California Nebula Mike- That is simply awesome. I observed the nebula myself this past weekend from Portal and it was the first time I was able to see this object...which of course was pretty much a broad and featureless elongated glow in the eyepiece. Great work! Alan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Wiles" <mikewilesaz@xxxxxxxxx> To: AZ-Observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2011 11:01:38 AM Subject: [AZ-Observing] NGC1499 - California Nebula Hello all, A few weeks ago I made a pilgrimage to the holy site known as Starizona to have Dean take a look at my CGE mount and tighten up some backlash issues on the declination axis. I left the mount with him and took my wife for some unbelievably good BBQ about a mile away from Starizona. As is his usual ethic, by the time I returned Dean had essentially stripped and reconstructed the entire mount and wasn't willing to give it back to me until it met with his personal approval. I got the mount home and it's not even like the same piece of hardware anymore. I liked it before...but it's rock solid now. Anyway, this past weekend was my first trip to a dark sky with the mount and it performed flawlessly. I was able to accomplish my goal of setting up a series of exposures and letting the laptop use my C11 while I observed with my other scope. Overall a great night and I have a ton of data (167 useable subs) to process that will probably take me a little while to work through. Here is the first of those images for the group's enjoyment. NGC 1499 - California Nebula<http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6047/6282124766_4f444fcdc2_b.jpg> As you may have deduced, it's an image of the California Nebula (NGC 1499) shot from the Antennas site on 10/22/2011. This is a composite of 15 subs of 3 minutes each for a total integration time of 45 minutes. I shot the image with a QHY8PRO CCD camera attached to my Hyperstar equipped Celestron 11" Edge HD on a Starizona-cized CGE Mount. Comments and criticisms are welcomed and appreciated. Thanks, Mike -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list. -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list. -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list.