John Hales and I decided to go to Chews Ridge to do a little photography. We were both expecting the weather to be normal for this location: wind, clouds, or both. We were both pleasantly surprised. We arrived Thursday afternoon and began setting up. About 5 o'clock, we noticed that it was getting cold. Sure enough, the thermometer was registering in the low 50s, and the sun was still up! It promised to be a cold night and we were not disappointed! When I went to bed at 2 o'clock, the mercury stood at 37. I was wearing every piece of cold weather clothing I own and looked like a cross between the Michelin Man and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man! However, the sky was very clear and it looked like I could just reach up and touch the stars.

This trip I decided to try the little 4" Vixen Fluorite refractor for some more astrophotography. I have rings so this instrument sits atop my 6" AP that sits atop a G-11 mount. While it seems to be a good system for photography, I did suffer a bit from aperture envy! However, John K. showed up Saturday with his 18" and this helped alleviate my photon deprivation. While I did very little visual work, I did photograph with great success a number of objects. The horse head and the flaming bush nebula are stunning with bits of nebulosity filling the frame. The cluster M45 is embedded in a field of glowing blue nebulosity and the galaxy M31 fills the frame with spiral arms. The galaxy M33 is a blue color with several emission nebula being visible. The veil nebula is a long arc of red nebulosity with numerous dark patches and knots. The Rossette nebula fills the frame and the picture of M42 shows subtle differences in the intensity of the nubula and M43 glows pale blue.

While words cannot adequately describe photographs (I do not have a web page), the little Vixen gave a good account of itself. Overall, this was a very satisfying trip and I have a number of fine photographs for my trouble and effort.