at
Kirby Storter Roadside Park in Collier County Florida
September 3, 2010
|
Friday Night Viewing at Kirby Storter Roadside Park in Collier County Florida September 3, 2010 |
|
Fred Lehman Once again and for the first time in almost five months, the clouds relented on the day of a scheduled outing. I arrived shortly after sundown and set up under perfectly clear skies. There was not as much as a breath of wind to blow away the early evening mosquitoes, but they weren't a problem at all later on when it was nice and dark. Since it has been quite a while since my last imaging session, I was a little rusty and didn't get everything put together properly till well after 10PM. I had just enough time before moonrise to capture a couple of fine images of two familiar Milky Way objects. Although I have shot each of them several times over the years, I wanted to try them one more time with my new high-resolution camera. Both images turned out spectacular, and I am quite pleased with the results. I put an hour and twenty minutes on the Trifid Nebula (M20) and an hour and forty minutes on the Dumbbell Nebula (M27). After taking a fresh set of dark frames I packed up and headed for home, arriving about 4:30 AM. I spent the next hour and a half processing the pictures and I finally got to sleep just as the morning twilight was beginning to wash away the darkness of the night. I was accompanied by Marc Umlas and Don Ellington from SFDSO and a few of the more adventurous members from the astronomy club of Fox Observatory, the most hearty of whom stayed out till after 1 AM.
| ||||
|
Marc Umlas Fred, Don, and I headed out to Kirby Storter and arrived about 8pm. I noted after setup that I had left my battery charging behind my house about 70 miles away. Fred was gracious to lend me one of his batteries which saved my evening. I put 100 minutes on the Bubble nebula which got me within an hour of moonrise. Everything started to dew up about 0115 and we left Kirby at about 0300.
| ||||
| Back | Home |
