A fun but short night at Coe

by Pete Santangeli

That was definitely the feeling up at Coe this evening. The Coe-b-q, was great. All had a great time eating great dogs and pizza, along with a table full of other goodies.

The skies looked foreboding from the start, with major clouds hanging over the distant coastal mountains, that were clearly higher than us.

As the evening started, we had soft seeing with wisps of clouds. It did get a bit better occasionally, but the skies were never up to Coe's best. By about 10 pm, things were really starting to get socked in, and by 10:30, people were packed up.

For my part, I was surprisingly successful given the conditions. I was choosing my targets not by preference, but by what was visible in the best bits of sky. I shot just under an hour of the Little Dumbell:

A smaller cropped version:
http://www.santangeli.net/oct142006/lildumbell-small.jpg

The full frame for those on broadband:
http://www.santangeli.net/oct142006/lildumbell.jpg

I then had but 25 minutes of exposure on M33, but since it's this month's TAC-Imaging challenge object, I'll share it:

Small version of just the core:
http://www.santangeli.net/oct142006/m33fog-small.jpg

Full frame: http://www.santangeli.net/oct142006/m33fog.jpg

For those interested, they were shot with my 16", Starlight Express M25c camera, through a Baader field flattener.

Pete