Grabbed a singular lunar capture last night (4 September) with the Optolong l-eNhance filter in place. My prior lunar captures during this cycle have utilized the filter, so in an effort of consistency...
Link to full-res:
Not especially pleased with that one. The highlights are too lit giving it a bit of a crunchy appearance, at least to my eye on my monitor. After that, I set up for deep-sky and ran off 60 3-minute frames of
Interesting day. We had a sort of hobby fair at work along with a sports-themed tailgating party. Grilled burgers and hot dogs. For the hobby portion, the goal was for employees (at least, those that signed up) to set up a booth and display/discuss a hobby. Mine, of course, was astronomy.
The event was scheduled to begin at 1030 hrs. At 0945, I drove home (I live about 3 minutes away) and loaded up the full imaging rig (SV102T, AVX, cables, cams, etc.) along with my 12" Apertura dobsonian, Twilight II mount, and
Anyway, I got back to work and was directed to a parking spot. At first, the organizer wanted me to set up at an indoor space fearing that it would not be good for my gear to be set up in grass (:lol:) but I assured him that it would be ok as it was typically set up in just such a place. Besides, I didn't feel like toting all that mess through a bunch of doorways and up a short flight of stairs.
I set up star party style by opening the back of my Chevy Equinox and arranging the scopes in a semi-circle around the back of my vehicle. I also brought two eyepiece cases and my Interstellarum atlas and two binoculars (a 10x50 and 11x70), all for show and tell.
In addition to my display, a couple of people were showing off their very nice hot rods, there was model rocketry, bird dogs, para-sailing, roller derby (who does that?), gardening, crafting, fishing, camping, and a couple of others that I do not recall. As for the tailgating, we seem to be inundated with Pittsburgh Steelers fans, Kansas City Chiefs, and Kansas City Royals fans. I thought about wearing my St. Louis Cardinals shirt, but I didn't feel like smack-talking with the other people.
I didn't get a lot of traffic at my display but did get a few folks over who asked great questions, and a few more that had little department store scopes. One guy has an old 70mm Celestron refractor that is somehow broken and he asked if I could fix it. I said sure, bring it up and I'll have a look at it.
And of course, there is always that one guy who doesn't know much of anything really but did see the Moon once with his little so he's gonna stand there and talk loud and expertly (and incorrectly) answer questions asked. He finally went away.
I did that for 2 hours and then realized the flaw in my plan of setting up outdoors. I pretty much got roasted. I don't really tan, I just sort of burst into flame. When I finally got back inside to attend a meeting at 1300 hrs., some people thought I was mad and about to blow a gasket because my face was all red.
Got home and got all that stuff unloaded and put away. I did park the AVX in its usual spot in the yard with the
The sky was still blue when I got started, though the Sun was well into the western and beginning it's decent. I ran off a thousand frames, waiting a bit, and fired off 1000 more (sans filter).
Link to full-res:
Link to full-res:
After those were done, I added a 2x barlow in front of the cam (I had the 1.25" nose piece installed). With the ASI174MC, it takes three panels to cover a quarter Moon. With the ASI294MC, it takes only two panels.
Link to full-res:
Since I was in the mood, I grabbed my
Link to full-res:
After that, I reconfigured the works for deep sky and added my l-eNhance filter to the mix. And again, in an effort of consistency, I ran off another full-disk at the same resolution of my prior day captures.
Link to full-res:
So there you go, more cowbell.
After that, I fired over to the eastern portion of