Re: [APML] Chiricahua Adventure and New Images

["Bobby Middleton" <bobm@koyote.com>]

Jon excellent images from the 160. Sorry the wind was a problem for part of
the trip. Will you go back?
Bobby Middleton

----- Original Message -----
From: Jon Kolb <jkolb@mindport.com>
To: <astro-photo@seds.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2001 8:05 PM
Subject: [APML] Chiricahua Adventure and New Images


> As some of you know, I recently drove down to Chiricahua National Monument
> in Arizona.  Out of three nights I was there, two were suitable for
> astrophotography, the first night being lost to high winds (my portable
> annemometer said the peak was 48mph!) and high clouds.  The second night
was
> clear and calm, but the black parts of the sky did not appear to be as
black
> as I'm used to in Colorado.  The third night was clear, but windy, and
> exhibited the same relatively low contrast compared to what I'm used to.
I
> suspect that there was a lot of dust thrown into the sky by the high winds
> during the day that I arrived (these mountains are basically and island
> surrounded by desert), or possibly high water vapor content in the
> atmosphere.  My portable instrument showed humidity of around 45% early in
> the second night, then climbed to 75% by about local midnight, and dew
> started forming on some of my cases.  Then, within two hours the humidity
> had dropped to 25% and the dew evaporated.  The third night was dry all
> night at around 20%, but as I said windy with some gusts of around 20mph.
> The seeing on this last night was very shaky down where all the good stuff
> was.
>
> The site I chose was Massai Point, since the southern horizon is somewhat
> lower and less obstructed than the Echo Park trailhead parking lot.
> Conditions at both of these sites are decadent by my standards, with paved
> areas to set up, restrooms, and even bear-proof trash cans for those film
> wrappers.  Despite the altitude of nearly 6900 feet, the temperature never
> dropped below 40 F - balmy by any nighttime standard I'm used to.
>
> The good news is that I got to meet up with list member Dean Ketelsen and
> his friend Roger (insert hard to remember or spell name here).  They both
> brought along their self-built scopes. Dean's was a large, fast Newt (11"
> f/3.5 with coma corrector) with a cleverly integrated Newt guidescope all
in
> one unit.   Roger's was an imposing folded 8" achromatic refractor.  We
> were, as Dean said, "all G-11 men" that night.  This is the first time I
had
> ever done deep sky work with other telescopes and astrophotographers
> present, and so it was a new experience for me.  The view through Roger's
> refractor of Omega Centauri is one that will take a severe head injury to
> forget!  Dean pointed out the zodiacal light to me - something I had never
> recognized before.  Many thanks to Dean and Roger for making the long
drive
> out from Tucson to join me.  The conversation and comeraderie were most
> appreciated, as were the views.
>
> The bad news is that I made tons of mistakes.  I must have kicked the
tripod
> the first night of imaging, since all the shots have field rotation, even
> after a lengthy drift alignment.  The second night I failed to tighten
> clutches down on all of the shots, such that the wind caused some trailing
> in several images.  And, nearly all of the medium format shots with the
Borg
> 100ED were blown due to poor focus.  To add insult to injury, the images
> with the very best focus, guiding, and alignment were attempts at very
faint
> stuff that I have not seen imaged before (although I'm sure they have been
> by somebody) like IC4601, Zeta Ophiuchus, and Sh2-1.  These atttempts were
> promising, but not quite enough for my processing skills.
>
> However, all was not entirely lost, as a handful of 35mm images are decent
> enough to post at web resolution while I scheme a reshoot strategy.  They
> were all taken with the Epsilon-160, and can be found as "New Images"
here:
> http://home.datawest.net/jkolb/astrograph.htm
>
> The star trails, scenics, and a couple of the successful wide-field 6x7
> shots are still in progress.  I also have updated my Dark Sites page, if
> anyone's interested, with a map from the Color Landform Atlas of the
United
> States.  The new page layout can be viewed here:
> http://home.datawest.net/jkolb/dark_sites.htm
>
> Comments and questions are welcome.  And Dean, you were right, the
> restaurant at the truck stop in Willcox wasn't half bad.
>
> Sincerely,
> Jon Kolb
> Adventures in Astrophotography
> http://home.datawest.net/jkolb/
> jkolb@noochee.com
>
>
>
>
>
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