>From sentto-1592885-431-1008438391-mvincent=nmsu.edu@returns.groups.yahoo.com Sat Dec 15 10:47 MST 2001
Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2001 17:46:06 GMT
Subject: [aslcnm] Notes from Upham

Hi All,
I made the trip to Upham on Thursday to do some photography/imaging/Geminid
watching.  I was observing with a soon to be ASLC member Steve Barkes and
I'd like to take a moment and introduce him to the group.  Steve is a
former Las Cruces resident that's been living in the Washington DC area for
the last several years.  He got into astronomy while he was out there and
was an active member of the Greenbelt Astronomy Club?  This will be of
interest to Richard; he participated in both sidewalk astronomy and
introductory astronomy classes with his former club and is interested in
helping ASLC in those areas, as well. 
I met Steve a couple of months ago on a webcam astronomy group and we
agreed to hook-up when he came back to NM.  He's interested in webcam
astronomy and has made long exposure modifications to several Vesta CCD
webcams.  He's also looking to write a Windows application for image
acquisition and processing for the long exposure mod.  

Geminids: 
I was busy and only periodically watched the meteor shower so I didn't get
a good hourly count.  It seemed to vary in intensity.  There were periods
where we would see maybe ten a minute then it would taper off for a while. 
There were even a couple of times that I saw 2-3 at a time though they were
rather dim.  The highlight of the evening was a really bright atmosphere
skimmer that left a long greenish trail from East to West for more than 50
degrees, a little after sunset.  That was worth the trip in itself.  All in
all, it was a pretty good show, even though it was overshadowed by the
recent Leonids.

It was very cold (low 20's) and there were high clouds to the South and
West early that cleared by 9:00 or so.  
I did some film photography of M42 using my LX200 and a piggybacked ST80
during the first part of the night.  After 10:00, Steve and I did some
planetary imaging using my unmodified Vesta webcam (see the attachments.)
The Saturn image (12/14/01 05:54 UT) is a compilation of 80 frames, taken
using a 3x Barlow and a 10" Lx200 @ 352x288 res and 2 FPS.  All were
stacked using AstroStack and processed in Photoshop.   
Jupiter (12/14/01 05:33 UT) was magnified using a 2x Barlow. Everything
else was the same as the Saturn image.

By 11:00 we'd had enough and packed it up.  I think Steve had a harsh
reminder of how to dress for the high desert in winter. (No tennis
shoes!!!)
Clear Skies,
Dave


Astronomical Society of Las Cruces is a member of the Astronomical League and International Darksky Association.
To Post a message, send it to:   aslcnm@eGroups.com
To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: aslcnm-unsubscribe@eGroups.com 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/