Re: [APML]: New picture from La Palma :-)

[a.vannini@mclink.it (Alessandro Vannini)]

Chris Vedeler <cvedeler@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

>>WOW!  What a great shot!  Must have had some very dark skies to capture
>>Barnards loop that well!
>>
>>Congratulations!

Thank you, Chris! :-)

Yes, the sky was very dark, even if not so dark as we where told;
we've found some dew, high clouds, and a near-to-summer temperature!!!
We went to the Observatory well suited for winter "north pole" nights,
but we've found *very* comfortable temperatures instead, and no snow
at all! Maybe "El nino"... :-)

Anyway, it was the darkest sky we've ever seen in our life: the
Orion's image you can see on the web page was taken without ANY
filter, just the lens, the film, and the valiant Andrea Ricciardi to
guide the exposures :-) To see the winter Milky Way was an astonishing
show: never seen so contrasted before, and so filled up with dark
clouds, nebulae, and stars, stars, stars spreading everywhere, it was
quite difficult to recognize the Orion's usual shape!

The weather conditions was very different at the Teide Observatory, in
the Tenerife island: we've found badly cloudy nights, wind and poor
sky transparency.

We have another trip to the Canary Islands scheduled for this summer,
this time we'll stay at La Palma only, the Observatory's "Residencia"
is too much beautiful, astronomers, telescopes, woods, tropical
beaches, high mountains, clear dark skies, and astronomy amateurs:
what else to ask for? :-)

-------------------------------------------------------------
Alessandro Vannini (from Rome, Italy) - a.vannini@mclink.it
http://www.mclink.it/personal/MC7872/deepvoid/deepvoid.htm

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