October 24, 2009: DARC Observatory

Rogelio Bernal Andreo

Despite a Moon going to sleep late, a good forecast -and the fact I was short one session from getting data to finish my mosaic - prompted me to head to DARC Saturday night. What at first looked like a small gathering of just 3-4 people, by 5pm it seemed as if I was the only person who would go - besides Dr. Lee Hoglan, one of the owners of the observatory, of course.

Not in a hurry to arrive, I got there almost at 9pm and I was happy to see Eric Zbinden already setup and waiting for the Moon to set. About an hour later, Al Howard - who's already earned the "diehard" title I think - showed up as well. There you go, three TAC imagers under the skies. What fun! ;-)

Except for a few minutes around 1am when some thin high clouds passed by, we all enjoyed a great night, and at 11:30pm we all had forgotten about the late Moon. Seeing was a bit soft most of the time, but transparency was quite good all night - except for those 15 minutes or so around 1am. No wind (CSC predicted moderate to strong winds) and comfy temps steady between 59-62F. At 4:35am I called it a night and 20 minutes later I was on my way home, tired but happy.

And finally I ended up with enough data for the mosaic I've been working all month. I spent half day Sunday putting it all together. Of course now I'm tempted to add one more row to it at the bottom, but that'd have to wait until next month. As it is right now, the image covers around 17x8 degrees out of a 3x4 mosaic. Not tiny. Here's a teaser:

http://deepskycolors.com/pics/astro/2009/10/md_2009-10-XX_M45Ngc1499WF.jpg

And here's a black'n'white version, for those sensitive to strong colors ;-)

http://deepskycolors.com/pics/astro/2009/10/md_2009-10-XX_M45Ngc1499WF_BW.jpg

It was nice to be back at DARC, the site once again stood by its name. Thanks Lee for your hospitality!