Great evening in Vänge, 2nd Dec 2012.

[VigdisVZ]

This is as much an observation report as a photo report. After having talked to Christoffer at the latest meeting in the club house in Uppsala about visiting him.

I braved the cold and drove my little car up to his house (about a 45 min drive). Christoffer already had his gear mounted and I started to fumble with Polaris. This time I had to decrease the power of the leds in the mount to actually be able to polar align. Polaris felt really weak, or it was the moon who drowned it.

After that we did some visual observing, Jupiter showed it's most magnificent side in Christoffers mighty 1500mm focal length newtonian (2.5x barlow and high power EP's) during periods of good seeing, and I also had a quick look at Albireo and Jupiter through my scope. Didn't bother with any faint ones since the moon out and about.

The weather just about held up for us to get a few great pictures taken. Christoffer got some really nice Jupiter pictures taken with his webcam setup while I did a stack of 33x30sec lights and 9 darks of M45.

I also took a picture of M42, just a single 30 sec sub, and it turned out great.

I also managed to have a look at M42 through my new cheap 10x50 binos I picked up today. Cracking little set of binos for the price. Especially when my Nikon is mounted to the scope.

After that we felt the evening was getting too late and we went in for tea. Christoffer offered me some newly baked christmas buns while I brought a pack of Jaffa Cakes, and introduced him to the phenomenon. We stacked one of his excellent images of Jupiter in Registax 6 before I drove my cold little car home.

Now I've lingered too long past bedtime processing the material, but I am seriously happy with the outcome.

[Special K]

That looks like some seriously cold conditions! Absolutely lovely picture of Pleiades and interesting report. Good to see you got some warmth and goodies at the end. I was nearly hypothermic on Saturday night here in the UK!!!

[Astro Imp]

Looks like a great night, pleased to see you are introducing your friend to Jaffa cakes.

Loved the image of M45.

[sologuitarist61]

Three cracking images Carl - the first one especially as we rarely see weather like that here in the UK (well not in Cornwall anywya!!)

[VigdisVZ]

Thank you all. It was a very nice evening. I suspect I'll be visiting Christoffer some more this season

Hopefully the weather will ease up or my other car will be fixed soon. The drive took only 45 minutes, but the heater couldn't cope with the cold so I was almost shivering when I arrived. Luckily Christoffer had an electric heater to give my car a boost before I headed home.

The cold may have affected me more than I realised, woke with a headache today and have been feeling under the weather until I took a 10 minute nap. It might have been enhanced by light dehydration and slightly irregular food intake. You burn energy when it's cold.

[Special K]

The cold may have affected me more than I realised, woke with a headache today and have been feeling under the weather until I took a 10 minute nap. It might have been enhanced by light dehydration and slightly irregular food intake. You burn energy when it's cold.

Though I wasn't in Sweden on Saturday night it was easy to overdo it here too. Brain wouldn't function after two hours or more at 30 Fahrenheit. Sounds ridiculous but I was in the back door and fell asleep at the kitchen table!!! Good thing she was out!

But seriously this hobby involves everything from astrophysics to human physiology, rods and cones, pupil exit, and the common cold! I've been fighting something off since the kit table collapse but still gotta duck out at 9:30 and see Io emerge from an eclipse. However it's a balcony quick-fix and plan to be tucked in for 10...!

Clear skies, bundle up, and lets be safe out there!

[KevUU]

Cor you can see how good the sky was from that first shot! That's a nice pleiades too

Glad you had a good night, sounds like fun.

Thanks for the report

[VigdisVZ]

Here's another shot of our setups taken by Christoffer (to the left in the pic, I'm the shorter guy to the right).

As you can see his older Nikon has the star-eater, but luckily the new ones like mine don't have this anymore.

His newt (the white one) is impressive right?

[stoffe]

Hello everyone, I am Christoffer and I am new to this forum. Carl and Gunnar has invited me here. Btw my Newton telescope is a Cave Astrola 1600 mm 8" (f/8) mounted on a EQ6 (with Gunnars modification). I planning to try out deepsky photo too but I have only my D80 and I'm dreaming of a D600, a D7000 would also work but that not FX for all the other photography I do. My planetary photo career has just started and maybe I will post a photo here of my version of Juptier from nearly 60 degree latitude. I have used my telescope in 4 nights in a row and one of the night was around -25 celcius degree (I guess it would be equal to -13 fahrenheit) quite cold here sometimes but I like it Btw it my backyard on the pictures that Carl posted.

[Special K]

Hello everyone, I am Christoffer and I am new to this forum. Carl and Gunnar has invited me here. Btw my Newton telescope is a Cave Astrola 1600 mm 8" (f/8) mounted on a EQ6 (with Gunnars modification). I planning to try out deepsky photo too but I have only my D80 and I'm dreaming of a D600, a D7000 would also work but that not FX for all the other photography I do. My planetary photo career has just started and maybe I will post a photo here of my version of Juptier from nearly 60 degree latitude. I have used my telescope in 4 nights in a row and one of the night was around -25 celcius degree (I guess it would be equal to -13 fahrenheit) quite cold here sometimes but I like it Btw it my backyard on the pictures that Carl posted.

Hi Christoffer and welcome to the forum! It is great to see what skies and equipment you guys have there. Plenty cold too! We have just finished with about 5 or 6 nights good viewing here in the UK. This is a great place to share ideas and experiences and I get a lot out of it. Good bunch of people!

[SnakeyJ]

Hi Christoffer,

Welcome on board and thanks for putting me out of my misery, very interesting scope and at F8 would love to see some of your images posted up. Don't envy you & Carl the cold, but looks like you've found a fantastic backyard/dark sky site going on Carl's posted images.

Look forward to seeing some more images - though try and avoid getting frostbite in the process.

BR - Jake