Fuerteventura June 2023

[OK Apricot]

Well that's all of friday night and the best part of today processing the data from Fuerteventura!
 

A little about the trip - I shot looking south to SSE from a small "cliff" at the shoreline just up from Las Plajitas which was about as good as I could find on the island taking into account access, local low cloud habits and light pollution info from the 2015 survey. To my inexperienced eyes and with an educated guess, I'd say it was a solid B3. I'd love to get an SQM meter to be able to more accurately determine the conditions above! Having said that, being on the SSE side of the rocky and mountainous island with a NNWly breeze, seeing was garbage. That didn't take away from the breathtaking Milky Way core on show! It was amazingly big and bright, easy to spot dusty features against the glowing star clouds, almost 3D looking. Many familiar objects could be seen naked eye, even down to 12-13 degrees above the horizon. Omega Centauri was slap-in-the-face obvious, M8 and M20 a fairly easy spot, M24 and the Sagittarius star clouds, M31 prominently rising above the mountains, M13 a fuzzy star in the Keystone, and many other Messier objects. It was an almost spiritual experience and can't wait to hunt down the potential B1 skies of rural Nevada in October! 
 

I chose to shoot targets that I otherwise couldn't really do from 52 degrees north. I really wanted to go after the Lagoon and Triffid and the Eagle, managing to capture 2.5 and 2.75hrs of exposure respectively. In between, I did an hour each on Omega, Centaurus A and the Small Sagittarius star cloud. In between clouds, sleep deprivation, dithering times and tossed out subs, that's about all I managed in the end. Chuffed to bits with how things have turned out! The stars have improved in the corners and I didn't have to chuck out as many subs as I thought I might with the SA GTI fighting the stiff canary breeze at full capacity!

All shot with the mini rig - Sharpstar 61EDPH II @f4.5, ASI533MC-Pro, ASIAIR Plus, EAF, SVBony guide scope and ASI120MM-Mini, mounted on the SA GTI. Processed with DSS and PS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[carastro]

Really nice collection there.  Well done and for getting your kit out there and finding the best place.  Also great to get some targets we can't get from home.

My only holiday in Fuerteventura, was pretty negative from the Astronomy point of view, but I didn't have a car and so I could not see much at all from the hotel.  I can remember that awful wind which pretty much spoilt the first half of the holiday.  Should have translated the name of the island before I booked - Duh!!!

Carole   

[OK Apricot]

Thank you 🙂 Yes the wind can get quite old quite fast, but was fortunate enough this time that it was a lot more gentle than last year - laying on the beach then was like actually being sand blasted! 

[Debo]

Super images, very nice 💥

[ollypenrice]

Lovely. I might look again at the globular, which is rather green, I think, but I like the images and the way you leave a high black point.

Olly