Yay, the weekend. I'm off until Tuesday, so that's nice. I might actually get a few things accomplished, who knows? I could do housework. Or better yet, I could finish the grill I'm making for my friends BBQ that I also made for him. However, it's only expected to reach 10C (~50F), so I'll see how that goes. I could do both, but that sounds very tiring, especially the housework part...
Last night I started watching a movie in the basement on Netflix called Gods of Egypt. Meh. About half an hour later, I looked at the clock and saw it was coming up to 10:30. That's really the last thing I remember; I was out like a light.
This morning at exactly 5:14AM I woke up to that wonderfully intense pressure that told me I was going to have to sprint up two flights of stairs. I don't think I have to explain why. This, by the way, is always a good time for the
Since I was now awake thanks to bladders and cats, I thought some coffee would be an idea. While that was brewing, I stepped outside to see what it was like.
Not the clearest of skies; I could pick out the brighter stars. I looked almost due south and low in the horizon was the 61% illuminated Moon with a bit of a "moonglow" in the slight haze. Being low down in the horizon doesn't help either, but I'm up anyways. However, the Moon was in the sky between the side of the house here and a tree. Quite a narrow window; I had about 10 minutes before the evil orb snuck behind the tree.
Instead of my bad explanation as to the Moons location, I took a picture later in the morning of my south view and superimposed the Moon as to where it was in the sky when I stepped out. According to Stellarium, it was at 19* altitude and 170* azimuth. That distant fir tree is lined up with due south.
Seeing as how I had those ten minutes, I once again ran downstairs to get my 550D camera, ran back up and put it outside, then took out my 80mm scope (C80-HD). I lined up the scope, put the camera into the focuser and started shooting. I took sots at a few different ISO and exposure settings; ISO 400 and 1/320th sec were by far the best. The time on those photos was 5:53AM, and the Sun rose here today at 6:56AM.
I aligned all 15 pics in PIPP, then used AS3 to stack them. I decided to stack all 15; the end result was better than I expected. I have PIPP sort the RAW images by total brightness and save them as TIFF's, and they all came in at over 98% quality, which again surprised me given the conditions outside.
Using the Camera Raw filter in
And here is the end result of that little foray:
During the time between my processing fun and typing this, my better half left to get groceries. I know roughly how long she'll be, so I made coffee before she got back, and when she came in I did the right thing; I stopped typing this and went to help her put it all away and deal with the once again loud
It's after 11AM here already; I can't believe that. Mayhaps I should have a bite to eat and relent to some housework. Then if it's warm enough, I can spend the latter part of the afternoon welding up that grill.
Oh, the happy faces I shall see
I hope you have a good weekend and all the best!
I've just re-read my comment and have seen my error.