Observation Report 15th November 2010

After nearly 2 weeks of poor skies and incompatible shift pattern I decided that a early morning start was required and the sky was clearing nicely.

I set off to my dark sky site (Birkrigg Common) at 01:45 and arrived at 02:17, Birkrigg is a Moore on a fell side and trying to get to my usual place was proving very difficult, the grass was very wet and deep ruts in the mud. I tried for 10 minutes to reach my usual place but all I was doing was digging the car in deeper, sliding and wheel spinning across the grass. Before I got totally stuck I abandoned the attempt and slowly spun the car around and crept off the side of the fell, sticking in places but managed to get back to the road. Left Birkrigg at 02:45 and headed back into Barrow, but as the sky was totally clear it would have been a wasted trip to give up.

I went to my local Asda and topped up with the petrol, I was running very low.

My second observing area was over on South Shore Walney Island, but this does suffer some light pollution from B.A.E (Ship Building), which is very well lighted to the North, North-East from South Shore.

This was my first attempt at astro-photography with the Canon 350D and initial dark frame tests proved good.

I arrived at South Shore Walney Car Park, right by the ocean and proceeded to get my equipment set-up. (At least this was Tarmac and a solid surface).

A beautiful clear sky with Orion due south and no bright Moon to interfere with photography, (Although the Moon would have made a nice test subject)

I started to set the scope up at 03:15 and polar aligned and 2 star SynScan alignment was successful first time. The first alignment test was M13 but this was really well down and in the direction of the light pollution. The next alignment test was M45 Pleiades which this was a successfully centred in the eyepiece, the next object was M42 the Orion Nebular which this again was successful.

Spent a short while just visually observing M45, M42 as these were really bright and crystal clear, I was slightly apprehensive about connecting the DSLR to the scope having spent a good hour chatting on Twitter about the advantages of using a auto guider system. (Which I don’t have).

At 04:15 I concluded it was time to a least do some test with the Canon 350D, and took various photographs (Raw+Jpg) of The Pleiades and The Orion Nebular.

As there was a dew on the car I fitted the dew cap to the scope, this also acts as a stray light cap. I decided to check on Saturn as pocket universe for the Iphone told me it was rising about now, I swung the scope around and sure enough Saturn was just above the horizon, but in the dirty band of the horizon and seeing was not very good also the light pollution from that side interfered with viewing condition. But welcome back to my old friend Saturn it’s been a good few months since I viewed this planet, and although low down, the ring was clear enough although the whole planet was a dirty Yellow colour and blurry, with no real definition.

At 05:00 I decided that I had done enough tests for tonight and packed all the gear away. Once done I sat in the car to head home and turned the key, and nothing! Battery was dead, I’m not sure if the cold had zapped the battery or there is another fault?

I had to phone my wife for the recovery details, which in the end I didn’t use, I remembered my friend Andy, who is a Taxi driver and never sleeps whilst there is money to be made! A quick phone call and he was on route from Barrow town centre in his T5 Taxi, once he arrived, the jump leads connected and my car fired first time! So it was a quick cup of coffee with Andy and a chat and I eventually arrived home at 05:40 and emptied the car and stored all my gear away and was tucked up in bed by 06:10.

Good Points:

My feet were kept warm all night – Fur lined Boots recommended by @ramfrancisuk on Twitter.

The DSLR Canon 350D performed very well.

My Olympus Voice recorder worked well.

Bad Points:

EQ5 and SynScan alignment and tracking were poor due to my poor Polar Alignment I guess!

My car battery died.

Things to do before next session:

Find the Jump leads, I may have been able to start car from the Power Tank if I have put the leads in the car!

Read up more on Polar Alignment and Star Tracking tests.

Find all the breakdown info and keep this info in the glove box. In the car?

Apologise to my wife for getting her out of bed at 05:10 :mad: