The Kaibab Plateau is known as an "Island in the Sky" pushed up by tectonic plate movements with an elevation between 7000 and 9000 feet. It is an island of life with large pastures, forests (albeit a bit burned at some places from last year) and easy access to the Grand Canyon. The bison were not in sight though they were supposedly present. There are too many and the park has started issuing hunting permits to control the size of the herd. Nearby are the Vermillion Cliffs, Marble Canyon, Glenn Canyon Dam, the Kaibab trail that crosses the Colorado River, and many forest roads and vista points. Nice things to explore during the daytime.
The organizer, Gene Fioretti, had brought his brand new 22" UC Obsession with encoders and motors that he got working during this week. The group of astronomers included two people from San Diego, three from Arizona (including Gene), a person from Missouri, and me. Before dinner we would do one presentation for 4 nights in a row. I gave one too. The audience was counted on the fingers of one hand, maybe it will catch on next year.
Each day after dinner we went out to set up. I found out quickly how cold it can get. I had good clothes to keep my body warm but no long-johns to keep my legs warm. I tried using two pairs of jeans, this helped quite a bit but it's not ideal. The worst part is that I needed my fingers to use the Galaxy tab to control the gear, and the touch screen does not work with gloves on. This limits the observation time quite a bit, and the enjoyment too.
The visual observers got tens of visitors each night especially for the 22"
Let me describe my astrophotography achievements and mishaps day by day. Keep in mind it's never easy to figure things out in the dark at a new location without power and laptop while also socializing with others. Two nights were cut short because of clouds. I spent night 1 recovering from the drive.
On night 2 I tried the 12" Newt on the G11S with the ASI2600MC. At first I could not get the focuser working, possibly due to my own doing. I had unscrewed the setting screws of the flex coupler in order to make space for a sleeping bag and other goods sliding down the Newt to save space. After a while I figured it out, re-tightened the screws and it was working. Then I had to set the date and location manually, something that I had never done before (and was hoping it was a snap, normally Ekos sets it when I am on the internet). The location was not in the data base and the closest I could find was Las Vegas. I tried entering the latitude and longitude but Ekos did not seem to accept it. Of course this was my fault, I had to press the + to add a new location but in the dark and cold everything is hard to figure out. After this trouble I skipped setting the time (Ekos had nothing for it - it retrieves it from Linux). The next day I figured out how to use the date command in
On night 3 I switched back to the
On night 4 I tried the 12" again. I used the auto-focus and plate solving, which seemed to work, then I noticed umbrella-like deformations. Dang it, this was because we had been driving on very bumpy dirt roads to get a cell phone signal and it had rocked the scope out of collimation. After getting my Howie Glatter out and collimating the scope the weather got worse and I packed it up.
On night 5 I collimated first, did an autofocus and some plate solving for polar alignment. Then I took a 1 second image from the camera tab, and another one of 10 seconds to check the tracking. The latter did not work. I spent an hour trying all kinds of things to get an image and nothing works except closing Ekos and restarting for each one. So I gave up. The next day I found out that you must have the cooler connected or else this will happen. I had disconnected it to save battery power, and at first it seemed to work fine.
On night 6 I finally got my act together. I set the time, collimated the scope, took flats against the sky at dusk, after dark I auto-focused, did plate-solving based polar alignment, then added some stars for
Despite the mishaps I am pleased because I finally got the software quirks out of the way and I am pleased to be able to get images of 10 minutes integration time only. At the Kaibab plateau this is expected of course so I may visit it next year again. The quality of the images is better than earlier takes of the same object with the