Jan 13/14, 2015
Weather's been very frustrating since this comet appeared - either we had clean skies but a big moon and low comet, or we had cirrus clouds. Finally, the prediction was for a clean clear moonless sky, and the decision was made to make the most of it - going to south San Benito County, which promised very dark skies. It's a long tough drive, though - 100 miles from Santa Cruz and the last 20 are pretty slow and windy on crummy roads. I arrived at sunset, just after Kirk and JP got to the parking lot. Chris arrived 30 minutes later, and Ann and Merritt later at night.
Just a day past the nicest Venus + Mercury conjunction I had ever seen. The pair was only about 1 degree apart in this telephoto image |
Kirk admires the pitch black sky, and the zodiacal light column in the west |
JP and Kirk, the 12" scope, and Venus and Mercury just setting behind the distant hill |
A stack of the first 8 5-minute images (40 min of total exposure) on the 8" f/4 Schmidt-Newtonian telescope with SBIG ST4000xcm CCD camera at -30C chip temperature, stacked in Registax 5.1, processed in Photoshop including Astronomy Tools Photoshop Actions |
The 8" f/4, with Ann taking over the imaging sequencing while I stretch and grab a few panorama shots |
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Moonrise at 1:45am. The dew and cold had taxed to the max our batteries' ability to de-fog lenses and corrector plates and to power my computer. It was time for sleep. |
My ice-covered SBIG camera case, at dawn |
Our campsite; perfect view of the sky |
Chris shows off one of his 90 sec comet shots with the Canon |
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Chris' iOptron compact tracking mount, seemed to do a good job |
The rest of our crew... |
Eggs and sourdough toast for breakfast - thanks Ann and Merritt! |
It was time for a morning run for me - 5 and a half miles round trip, to a rugged waterfall - behind the middle/right mountain and at the top of the canyon winding through this picture |
The creek was flowing nicely; and I was optimistic the Falls would be as beautiful as the pictures. |
At the upper end of the canyon - the falls. And a swimming hole and rock from which one could dive, in a good warm spring after a good winter! |
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The creek crossing, with artistic filtering. It was quite a beautiful spot. |
