CEO Star Party in Mayer

[rod_sutter]

Last Night at the Cuttin Edge Observatory, we had some great views. I took my 16" and got a great view of M-104 The Sombrero Galaxy even before it was dark. Chris loaned me his new Ethos 13mm eyepiece, what great views with the eyepiece. M-57 was large and bright, and with averted vision you could see the central star. Then I went to M-27 The Dumbell and it almost filled the whole eyepiece, and you could even make out some of the structure of the nebula. M-101 was great, M-51 was large, Saturn and Jupiter was not to good, the wind got up and the air was turbulent but still some great views. Chris, Chet and Jim were doing astrophotography,both Jim and Chet were doing the North American Nebula at the same time. Chris was doing the Trifid Nebula. After the Moon went down,and the brightness left the sky the views got a little better. I left at 2:00am, the others were just shutting down things for the night, except Chris who was doing an all night shot of his object. You should come out next time to see some of the great views of a really dark sky.

[Neil R]

Thanks for the summary. Should have read this before my post.

[Chris Johnson]

The evening at the observatory was a ton of fun, and hopefully everyone enjoyed themselves. I spent time showing Chet how to use his new Hyperstar C8 + QHY8 combo. Steve helped a ton, but was feeling a bit under the weather. James tried out wide field on a Canon Rebel with a 300mm f2.8 lens, and Rod brought his dob for great views while my scope was busy imaging all evening. The weather at night was perfect. The wind disappeared for most of the night, and temp was still ~ 60F at midnight. The skies were amazing, as usual.

Through Rod's dob, I saw M27 so bright I could see major structure, and M13 had more brightness than I've could ever hope for in my refractors.

My main target was a combo shot of M8, M20, and M21. I put a .8x reducer on my Tele Vue NP-127is and shot about four hours of exposures.

I've attached a 33% size of M8, M20, and M21 together, a detailed shot of M8 only, a detailed shot of M20 and M21. I also snagged 30 minutes of M16, NGC7000, and B72. These 30 min shots aren't as good as they could be, so I'll have to go back and take more exposure time of them. I was just pointing around testing out how they framed in the Tele Vue.

The next event is on July 5th. Hopefully more can attend. We have the porta-john in place too!

[rod_sutter]

Hey Chris:
Those shots really turned out good.

[Terri Finch]

Chris,
You are becoming an excellent astrophotographer. These are fantastic!!!
Terri