Last night was excellent!

[Ant]

Last night was excellent....

I set the HEQ5 up with the APO on top. I have now re-positioned the finder so that it is easier to get to. Before, observing in the east meant that the finder was almost impossible to get to.

Anyhow, we set everything up and powered up the mount - it was quite a dry night so didn't worry about the dew strip (although I should have plugged it in to warm hands on ). Put in the low power EP - no sure what size it is (25mm I think), and swung around to the Comet.

Holmes is now very close to Mirfak and clearly visible in the same FOV (and in the same field on the canon chip as well). It is amazing the amount that this comet have increased in size and the amount that it has moved.

To be honest when you compare this comet to other naked eye comets it's actually quite small and slow moving, but this is the only Comet that I have ever seen that is circumpolar, not setting immediately after the sun... So I don;t really have a lot to compare it to.

It is certianly a strange one.

Jamie and I sat in the garden and Jamie held the IR remote and after every 15 second exposure he checked the screen (preserving my night vision : ) and set the next exposure going. We were out for about an hour and a half, Jamie thought it was very funny when planes went through the FOV and red lines appeared on the frames.

We also saw the crescent moon low down in the South west, and numerous sattelites.

Something that did suprise me a little... we were sitting behind the scope and he turned to me and said "Dad, Where's the big dipper?". It's the first real astronomy question that he has asked me out of the blue.

So I showed him the Plough, which at the time wasn't the easiest thing to show him (being very low down). Turns out that the big dipper is referred to in an Episode of "Wonder Pets" - if you have a 3 - 4 year old you'll know what that is .

After Jamie's bed time I went back into the garden and increased the exposure times to 20 seconds (from 15) as Holmes was quite a bit higher in the sky by then. I managed to get 97 frames in total.

By the time I packed up, around 10:30, there was ice covering most things the grass was crunchy underfoot and it was an almost perfect night (well evening).

Forgot the dark frames again , but I could get them tonight assuming that the temps are around the same... Put the images through DSS, but for some reason the PC decided to spit it's dummy out half way through the process. Even though the PC was still on it decided to stop sending any information to the monitor. Tried all sorts but had to resort to taking the plug out...

So I'll have an image to show but not untill probably tomorrow.

Ant

[Grant]

Nice report mate! Look forward to seeing the images - it was so cold last night, I had ice on all my scopes, couldn't get the caps on! Had to wait for them to defrost

Its nice to hear Jamie enjoying it too mate!

[Zeffer]

Sounds like you had a great night! I hope to bring my children out for a good look soon. I missed out last night, but tomorrow I hope to have a crack - these crisp nights seem to have great seeing.

[Ant]

What I do need to do though is raise the mount off the ground more - Showed Jamie M31 and I was practically laying on the floor...

Had a great night.

Ant

[Ant]

Ok as promised here are a couple of images from the other night.

First up is the little lad who takes the images - or at least he does till bedtime!!!

(click to enlarge)

Next is the fruit of the evening. This images as you'll notice was taken in two batches.

The first by Jamie between 19.50 and 20.23 - 47 images of 15 seconds each.

The second after bedtime - had to push the buttons myself - 51 imgaes between 22.05 and 22.36 increased to 20 seconds each.

Tried to stack in DSS, but I cannot get it to work correctly on a moving object... ended up with two nuclei [sp].

Manually stacked in Images plus in the end and then processed in PS7.

(click to enlarge)

Taken with 80mm APO and Canon 300D

Ant

[trudie]

Your assistant is a little smasher, my grandson who's 5 is nuts about the sky, and knows more about whats up there than I do, mainly thanks to the programme "Little Einsteins". Its great to see their enthusiasm.

Trudie

[centroid]

Nice to see young Jamie at the eyepiece, and getting involved. Could be the start of a lifetime interest, that he can share with his Dad.

Like Trudie, I have a young grandson (age 6), and he's learning about 'space' at school. He came round the other day, when I was in the process of updating the images on my web-site. He looked at the screen and to my surprise said, that's Saturn Granddad. He then looked at the Moon image, and asked, are they craters granddad, can you see them through your telescope?.

You can guess where we're heading from here on in.

My other grandson (13), used to spend a lot of time in the obsy with me, and he really enjoyed 'steering' the scope around the Lunar surface, and taking pictures. Unfortunately, he now lives in Australia, and I really miss having him around me. Still, I'll be taking him with me on a visit to the Perth Observatory very soon.

Keep young Jamie in there Ant, and watch his knowledge grow. Their young brains 'soak up' information like sponges.

Dave

[barkis]

That is so heartwarming Ant. I just filled up looking at that little guy sitting in his chair at the scope. And Dave is absolutely right, if you can keep his interest going, who knows what he can achieve. Astronomy encompasses many sciences. Of course he is only a child, and he will also develop an independence. But it is nice to see. Is that a luminous material around his jacket?

RON.

[Beyond_Vision]

Even if the Comet picture hadnt of come out it was worth it just to get a picture of Junior Ant at the scope. I really enjoyed reading your report of the nights goins on. Over the last few months I've been training my lad who is 16 months old now the names of the planets. He can now say Moon, Saturn and Earth and also pick out Jupiter from my desktop picture.

Nice picture of the comet BTW

Regards,

Kevin

[blinky]

He's got a Ready Break glow!