by Paul LeFevre
I spent Saturday night at the turnout spot on Palomar Mountain, getting better acquainted with my new CCD camera. Paul Withers, Bob Nanz, and Jeff Gortatowski were also there. Paul W. had a nasty surprise after starting to set up -- seems his 8" LX200 had taken a hit to the OTA during the week when a garage door spring broke loose, and his OTA had a huge dent in it, and some internal damage as well! Paul had intended to do some CCD imaging, but had to content himself to looking through his ETX-90, and looking over our shoulders as Bob & I made images. He was a great help using Maxim, however, and helped me improve my own shots considerably!
I felt a bit sorry for Jeff G. -- we had a little "Meade Farm" set up on one side, with Paul W.'s 8" LX200, my 10" LX200, and Bob's 12" LX200, while Jeff was at the end with his nice AP refractor. He has it on an AP400 mount with GOTO installed, so it's just as good (or better) at finding things, but quite a bit quieter than the Meade coffee-grinders! Jeff spent most of the night quietly searching out his own targets, and trying out some new equipment, while the rest of us played with our CCD chips and laptops. The seeing was normal for Palomar -- great! Transparency was about 7 out of 10, with seeing being 8 or 9 out of ten. We had a great night chasing down targets, and even when the moon peeked over the hill at 11:45 we didn't let up.
I stayed until about 4:15 AM, and was the first to pack up and leave. A great night with good company!
I had considerably more success with the CCD camera (an ST-6) this time...with a decent polar alignment and darker skies, I managed to get some pretty good shots. Even tried a couple of color pics! I'm already hooked on CCD work, since I can get good results in a short time, and see those results right away. This is some fun!
The night's work can be seen at http://www.slip.net/~lefevre/ccd819.htm -- still not Gralak quality work, but much better than the first night, and I'm learning!
Paul
p.s. for the original TAC folks, I can now vouch for the actual existence of Jeff Gortatowski. He's been on the TAC list for quite some time now, with noboby having met him in person. I finally got to meet him Saturday, and he really does exist! Nice to finally meet in person...