Today is Monday and I feel like it's last week, what happened to time? Oh, that's right; I got sucked into the vortex of work combined with weather... Winter finally hit last week. That took me to Saturday. Sunday I slept like a teenager, I can't remember the last time I got up at 2PM. Actually, it was probably when I was in my 30's and the last bad hangover I've ever had...
After all the snow and lousy foggy weather, the temperature dropped to -25C (-13F) last night (Sunday), the haze vanished and my
I wrapped it up at 11PM (it wasn't getting any warmer) and since I wanted to get up and be on the road at 6ish this morning, I left the photos on the camera/phone and crashed out.
Was up today and out at 6:30. The weather was supposed to get bad again; as I write this there is a blizzard happening outside. That made for a bit of a long day, plus I had my front passenger side tire blow out on the highway this morning at a bit after 7. When you're doing 130KM/H (85MPH) and that happens, it's a better wake up than coffee. The tire was destroyed, I got a tow and a new tire; was back on the road at 10. Damn Mondays, I should have stayed in bed....
End of rant; and back to last night. It cleared up late in the afternoon with the dropping temps, and I went out after dinner and had a look at Jupiter and Venus.
The Moon wasn't far behind. I have two 80mm scopes. A C80-HD at
I've always used the HD for Lunar/Solar pics, and the C80 for visual. The orange-tube just misses focus with a camera and my Vixen T-ring adapter, so after a bit of digging, I found that Baader makes a shorter one, which should bring it to focus.
I ordered it a year ago, and it showed up just after the holidays this year with cloudy skies....
Last month I bought a Televue 2.5X 1 1/4" Powermate and T-ring; I want to use this primarily with my 61mm W/O; though I'm already thinking about my other scopes with it. Decked out for solar...
Outside they both went. Even though fracs acclimatise well, I felt they needed some time to get the warm air out of the tubes. There was a 31C (88F) temperature difference from inside to outside....
While this was happening, I took out my Japanese-made 8X23 binos I bought in '85. Not the biggest field of view, but tack-sharp and one handed. I took in Orion. the Moon and just enjoyed the view and skies for almost half an hour, at least it wasn't windy!
Finally both tubes were cold to the touch, so time to get this going.
I took 50 shots with each scope; the 80mm at ISO 800 and 1/200th sec, and the same for the 60mm with the Powermate. I actually tried a few exposure settings (600 pics total!) but 200th worked the best for both.
I aligned them in PIPP with colour settings instead of my usual mono, and stacked the best 25% of both in AS3. And that was it; no post processing. I'm too tired at the moment...
The 80mm:
Full size image here
And the 60mm:
Full size image here
My focus with the 60mm might not be the best; and I want to go over this when I'm more awake. I'm honestly hoping for a snow day tomorrow to do that; just don't tell the boss
You all have a good night/day
I am pleased you got through it safely though.
