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Saturday Night Viewing at Kye's Star Farm
May 22, 2004
Jay Albert
May 22nd was another fabulous night at Kye's Star Farm. John Clifton, Jim
Kimball and I joined the Ewings and their guests for an observing session
under crystal clear skies and cool but comfortable temperatures. The seeing
was rough early in the evening but transparency was great throughout the
session and mosquitoes were few and not bothersome. We had good views of
the crescent Moon and the thinner crescent Venus while waiting for it to
get dark enough to see our alignment stars. I tried to image Jupiter with
my new digital camera, but the rough seeing and my own inexperience led to
poor results. Moving on to Comet Q4 NEAT, we all had fine views with the
comet exhibiting a large, bright coma with stellar nucleus and twin dust
and gas tails. The rest of the evening was spent on deep sky objects.
After viewing the globular cluster Omega Centauri and the galaxy Centaurus
A, I concentrated on less frequently observed galaxies in Draco, Bootes and
Canes Venatici.
In honor of George DeBarros, who was unable to join us this weekend, I
observed the red star Y Canum Venaticorum (which looked yellow) and Jim
displayed T Lyrae (which was actually red). Following a few more stops,
I finally arrived at my major objective for the evening, the sights in
the Sagittarius Milky Way. Among the numerous nebulae, open and globular
clusters, it was awesome slewing through the M24 star cloud which
overflowed several fields. I also had my best, most detailed views ever
of the nebulae M16 (the Eagle), M17 (the Omega or Swan), M20 (the Trifid)
and M8 (the Lagoon) using an OIII filter with 40mm Scopetronix Plossl and
18mm Meade Super Wide Field eyepieces.
The session ended at about 3am with everyone tired by satisfied.
John Clifton
I have been waiting for this observing session ever since the 2004
Mid-Florida Stargaze, which was two new moons ago. During the Mid-Florida
Stargaze, I photographed wonderful images of star trails, which were
unfortunately unintentional. At the time of the MFSG, I did not have
control stalks for my GEM mount, so I never loosened the clutches on the
drive motors, and I never checked them. I shot two full rolls of film,
three very full nights of pointing the camera at different objects, only
to have discovered the following Monday that the clutches had worked loose,
thus the star trails. Of all things that could go wrong... Operator
Error!
I would not be able get back to Kye's Star Farm for two months due to the
annual family vacation which took place during the new moon in April. The
entire two months I kept thinking that I would not get another chance this
observing season as the rains would be coming soon. Well, this past weekend
was the new moon, and I was ready.
I met Jim Kimball and Jay Albert out at KSF, and we took our time setting
up as the sun was still high in the sky. I scouted-out a good location for
my GEM mount, which now has the clutches securely locked. I mounted my
Nikon "F" on the mount with a Nikkor 135mm lens, and made sure the camera
was aligned with the scope. Now I just needed to wait for the sun to
set.
I wanted to get one last shot of Venus with the video camera, so that was
my first objective. I coupled the video camera to a 40mm eyepiece using a
Scopetronix Digi-T, dropped it into the diagonal, and captured several
30-second clips of video. I have been stacking video frames of Venus for
the last month, and made a composite image showing the phasing of Venus
this past month. Look for that composite image on the web site.
Finally it became dark enough to see the comet (2001 Q4 NEAT), so I pointed
the scope at it, and centered the comet in the eyepiece. I had a few
observers (guests of Kye Ewing) look at the comet through my scope. Then
I opened the lens of the camera to capture the comet on slide film. I
exposed the image for 45 minutes. I then shot another 45-minute frame of
Comet NEAT. After changing the lens to a 50mm, I shot another. It was now
time to catch my favorite part of the sky: the Galactic
Center. I pointed the scope in the area of Sagittarius, and
tilted the camera on the ball joint for a better composition of the
Teapot and surrounding areas. Still with the 50mm lens, I gave the
frame a 45-minute exposure. I was able to shoot two more frames before
closing up shop around 3:00 AM.
In the morning, I finished the roll by photographing the sunrise through
the trees. when I reached 35 exposures on the counter, I decided to stop
and rewind the film. While rewinding the film back into the canister, I
did not feel any resistance. OH NO... I did it again! Operator Error, I
thought. Did the film not catch on the spool? Did I not catch a single
frame? At that moment I felt the film leader pop off the camera spool,
and roll back into the can. With a thank you to the photographic gods,
I pulled the film out of the camera, and packed it in a safe
place.
I had the film processed while at work today, and of the six frames, I
have two images I like, one of each object from Saturday night. I'll
send them in to our wonderful webmaster for posting. Now I am ready for
the next 5 months. Go ahead... Let it rain!
Venus heading towards Solar Transit
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Nucleus of Comet Q4 NEAT
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Center of the Milky Way
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