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Rub it in why don't you. we're literally in the same boat as Glenn
(SW Missouri).
In the past 6 weeks, the only imaging I managed to squeeze in between storms was lunar. No chance of deep sky work with a 95% illuminated moon! Go figure. Grant Don't feel lonely. Here in San Antonio it has
been miserable. I think the whole problem is that I opened my garage door
too wide one day and the sky gods noticed I had installed my Schmidt camera on a
completely new mount. Since the camera has been offline for nearly three
years, I have been waiting for two months to try it out on real stars to verify
the focus before going through the effort of transporting it to TSP. That
s no-no with the sky gods. They inherently must gum up any test flight of
new astronomical equipment.
Last night the clouds did clear, but there was
considerable haze. I was able to see about half a dozen stars (but two of
them were planets!) so I pointed the camera at Regulus and uncapped it for 20
seconds under sky glow so bright I could see the colors on the film cassette as
I loaded the Schmidt. It looks like it is still in reasonable focus.
I could see about 20 other stars around Regulus on the negative. Now my
big challenge is getting all this stuff into my Bronco for the trip. I'm
thinking a hydraulic press may squash all this stuff in the back of the
truck!
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