| Nightfall 2014 Jeff and Fred enjoying some down time. Like all star parties, shade is a valuable commodity. |
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2014 Fred and me relaxing next to his Sprinter. |
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2014 I was playing with my new smart phone camera. Jeff's look is the one we all have when we go to a star party. |
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2014 Looking down one of the roads in the RV section. A long view of Fred and my scopes. |
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2014 Another view of our rigs. |
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2014 Fred and his rig. An Orion 190mm f/5.3 Mak/Newt on a Losmandy G11 GoTo mount. |
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2014 This is where Jeff was camping. He had good horizons except for to the south. |
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2014 Right next door to Jeff, a rep. from Vixen set up some brand new equipment for field testing. Nice stuff! |
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2014 Here is the public set up and observing area - right next to the lobby and restaurant. |
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2014 The other side of the road from where we were set up. About half-way down is the shower and bathrooms. The resort is really good about changing out all of the lights to red for the astronomers. A real nice touch. |
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2014 That's me waiting for dark. I didn't get any images this trip. I was having some major issues with oval and elongated stars. I got some help from a fellow from the Riverside club and we figured out that the problem was differential flexure. Basically, the guide camera field of view was too small (200mm) for the focal length of telescope (2350mm). I've since purchased an Explore Scientific 80mm (FL480mm) guide scope. That seems to have pretty much fixed the issue. |
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2014 Al brought Doc along in the RV and Annie flew down to spend a few days with him and us. Annie always brightens up the trips that she shows up at. Jeff, Doc and Annie. |
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2014 On the second to last day of the star party there is always a BYO potluck. Bring you own meat and a side dish to share. Jeff, Fred, Al and Annie. |
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2014 The picnic area at the end of the road. |
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2014 There's Jeff getting geared up for the evening. |
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2014 Al and Annie relaxing as it gets dark enough to start looking for the evenings' objects. |
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2014 Here they are again. Yeah, it's a tough life. :) |
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2014 Al and Ron with the 12" SCT that he uses for imaging. |
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