Unscheduled OR: Last Night's Leo Trio From Castro Valley

by Richard Crisp

Last night wasn't scheduled to be a good observing night according to the usual sources (NWS, Clear Sky Clocks etc). But it looked to me like there was a chance of clearing so I set up my imaging gear anyway.

By dark it was getting cloudier and cloudier, having looked pretty good only an hour before. Still I was reluctant to take things apart; it was still pretty eary.

Around 8pm it was clear, so I went to work on the Leo Trio.

The seeing was better than average, I was getting about 3.5 arc-sec stars during focus runs. Usually they are bit bigger from my backyard.

Because it was so transparent, the moon didn't bother me too much, which is good because I was not using narrowband filters (straight LRGB for the galaxies last night).

I racked up 4 hours and 10 minutes of total exposure time. I used my AP155EDF scope and SBIG ST10XME camera. I had my AP80mm guide scope piggybacked atop and guided with an ST7E.

http://www.rdcrisp.darkhorizons.org/m65_trio_page.htm

This Galaxy imaging is pretty fun. I still like big nebulae better, but this is galaxy season now, so it is time to get into them again.

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Posted on sf-bay-tac Sat Feb 28 12:43:18 2004 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.0 Fri Mar 12 21:27:12 2004 PT