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Saturday Night Viewing at Kye's Star Farm
October 25, 2003
John Clifton
George DeBarros and I left WPB at about 5:00 PM. The entire ride out to
Venus saw the skies improve with each mile. George's bank account
decreased in size during the trip, because he ordered a new laptop
computer while in the truck. George also ordered the Meade LPI (which
is backordered).
We arrived at Kye's approximately 7:00 PM EDT. Kye was at work
dealing with a small group of canoers who decided to cut their float
trip short and call for help. Already there were three other observers
from the area, and their plan was to do some CCD imaging. They had a
portable observatory set up for their scope, and a cabin tent set up
with their computer equipment inside. The skies were partly cloudy,
and the temperature was in the mid 70's. It was still twilight when
we arrived, so we sat down and talked with AL and the others. About
one hour after we arrived Paul showed up with a friend.
George and I wanted to do some film photography, but We didn't set
up a scope. We hung out with the other group, and learned quite a
bit about mosaic CCD imaging. We talked about the differences
between film and digital imaging, spherical aberration, reciprocity
failure, and the use of different types of scopes, f/Ratios, and
their effectiveness with imaging. We stopped to listen to the last
few innings of the Marlins game, celebrated for about 30 seconds,
and then got back to business.
The clouds did interfere a little bit, but it was a good night
overall. We returned home as quickly as possible, as I didn't
want to leave my wife home alone with her broken ankle for too
long.
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