60 second star trail. The star was in the East, so the trail direction is upwards. The trail begins at the bottom at 2:47:04.22 UT.
The path for this event was just off-shore, paralleling the California coast. But there was a chance it would shift and cross Cabrillo College. Not much of a chance - 13% - but worth a try. W/o timing equipment after the Observatory break-in's, my method of choice for now is the star trail drift image. John Broughton has kindly agreed to reduce these for timings.
Skies were clear with no clouds anywhere, and a full moon about 40 degrees from the target star. The event was at 6:47pm, and after donning my running shoes and doing a couple miles down to the beach and back, I drove to the observatory. No problem getting the target acquired, even though we don't have our old Owl 0.5x reducer on the finderscope, and only the 12mm lens on the pc164c as the pointer to get it on the CCD chip.
60 second star trail. The star was in the East, so the trail direction is upwards. The trail begins at the bottom at 2:47:04.22 UT. |