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Weekend Viewing at Area 51 in Big Cypress National Preserve
May 14 & 15, 2004
Bill Williams
>The following is an excerpt from an
e-mail letter to the club president:
Hi Fred. Enjoyed observing with you at the Comet NEAT Astroexpedition
last Saturday night. That was a spectacular comet next to the Beehive
Cluster in 16X70 binoculars! I tried to capture the essence of the scene
photographically. I used my 8-inch Celestron Schmidt camera which has a
6½º field to include both the Beehive and the comet with tail(s).
I guided on the comet head for a 3 minute exposure on Fujichrome 400F
film at f/1.5. There really wasn't any differential movement detectable
at that focal length between the comet and the stars, though. I manually
guided using a 3-inch refractor on an old Astro-Physics 1200 mount. Very
few mosquitoes helped make that task easy.
When we left Area 51 at midnight, we hit rain 10 miles east of the site
which lasted all the way home to Boca! I guess we lucked out! Let me
know when you will be heading back out there.
Comet Q4 Neat
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My son Brett with Fred Lehman
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My son Brett with my scope
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My son Brett with a neighbor to the South
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Jay Messeroff
The following is an excerpt from an
e-mail letter to the club president:
Here are the pictures I took last night of the comet, M3, M51, the Ring
Nebula and Omega Centauri. The scope is a Celestar Nexstar 11" GPS on
an equatorial wedge. The camera is the StellaCam II, which automatically
stacks at 256 frames each 8 seconds. I am stilling working on correct
focusing, which is difficult when you have to wait for the screen to
refresh every 8 seconds. I am also just beginning with photography, and
am sure if I knew what I was doing I could process these photos better. I
have anywhere between 20-60 separate 8 second frames of each object.
Correct stacking could probably yield better pictures.
I hope to learn how to do stacking and processing better soon. Perhaps
if I get up to the next meeting in Palm Beach you can introduce me to the
person you mentioned last night [Jim Kimball], who is an expert on these
things.
Comet Q4 Neat
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M3
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M51
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Omega Centauri
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The Ring Nebula
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Jeffrey Kramer
I was at Area 51 (our Dark Site) Friday night with my Celestron 6" GOTO
refractor. I observed for about 5½ hours (from 8:30PM to 2:00AM). The
night was clear and the transparency was good. The seeing was good about
a 7. Attendees included Fred with his 14" LX200GPS, Mike with his Nexstar
11GPS, Art with his 8" Dob, Kegan with his 8" LX200GPS, Paul with his 8"
LX200, and Jim with his 10" Dob.
While it was starting to get dark, I took a look a Venus and its thin
crescent phase. False color was not that bad on Venus. After Venus, I
took a quick look at Saturn and could see Cassini's Division around most
of the planet. Jupiter looked very good and the Great Red Spot was near
the center of the SEB. Jupiter was directly overhead and it held up well
at 240x, although it looked much better with the 4½" aperture mask. I
returned to Jupiter a bit later in the evening only to witness one of
the moons move in front of the planet and later on I saw its shadow.
Jupiter showed a lot of detail in its two main Equatorial Belts and I
could see a total of about 5 bands. All three planets looked better when
the scope was stopped down to 4½". I really wanted to see Comet Neat
tonight and it was easy to find as it was near M44 (Beehive). In fact,
I could see M44 and the comet in the same FOV of my finderscope. The
comet looked pretty cool. It had a bright nucleus and a faint tail which
extended right through the top of the FOV of the eyepiece. It looked
spectacular in my 41MM Panoptic at 29x and a 2.3 degree FOV.
After spending some time with the comet, I took a peek at M35, one of
my favorite open clusters. I viewed the following Messier Objects
tonight: M3, M4, M5, M11 (Wild Duck Cluster), M13, M16 (Eagle),
M17 (Swan), M27 (Dumbbell), M35, M44, M51, M56, M57 (Ring), M58,
M63, M64 (Black Eye Galaxy), (M65, M66 and NGC3628 in the same FOV),
M67, M81, M82, M95 & M96 in the same FOV, M104, M105, and M106. I split
Alpha Centauri which was right along the horizon, and also split Albireo.
Lastly, I viewed C80 (Omega Centauri), C77 (Centarus A Galaxy), and
C94 (Jewel Box in Crux). Omega Centauri looked incredible in my scope
as it so large, but the best view I have ever seen of it occurred when
I looked through Fred’s 14” scope with a bino-viewer. It looked like a 3D
object!
All in all, a very fun night. The scope performed well with all of my
GOTOs in the eyepiece and no realigning for the entire 5½ hours the
scope was used.
Fred Lehman
I attended both nights, and I must say that I had a great time. The
weather was incredibly good, and that is a real treat this late in the
season. The temperature was mild and the humidity was reasonable. I
don't really know why, but in spite of a complete absence of wind, we were
not harassed by the local mosquito population.
I am "between batteries" right now, and a problem with the cooling system
on my car prevents me from running the engine to charge its battery, so
I was unable to set up my scope for imaging. Although I had a good time
simply looking at the sky through an eyepiece, I had to
endure a bit of teasing from some of the other guys. One fellow said my
scope looked naked without its familiar array of cameras,
cables, and coily cords.
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