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Old October 4th 09, 02:39 AM posted to alt.binaries.pictures.astro
Rick Johnson[_2_]
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Default ASTRO: NGC 55 from Namibia

Excellent. Seeing there looks really good. Lot darker skies as well.
Sorry the wx didn't cooperate. Deserts aren't supposed to do that.
Sounds like that Goto controller wasn't very user friendly!


I've been out of town the last week as well. But not a astro related
trip. Wife insisted I come with her to visit a gathering of her family.
Not that I have bad in-laws. Just that 2 days driving for two days
there then same return trip is not my idea how to use time well. I have
a backlog of about 77 images to process and can't begin to do anything
in a car. At least she planned it for a time when the moon was out.

Rick


Stefan Lilge wrote:
I spent the last two weeks on astro holidays in Namibia. Unfortunately the
weather wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be with only four fantastic
nights in two weeks (and 2 or 3 partly clear nights).
Even though nights were about nine hours long I only managed rather short
exposure times for the two objects I imaged in each of those clear nights.
The reason for this was that I had to fight the traps and pits of the rather
abysmal "Starbook" attachment to the Vixen New Atlux mount I hired for my
stay. The mount itself was good (except for a very large backlash in dec),
but the Goto controller (Starbook) really cost me a lot of time.

In one of the partly clear nights I used my QHY8 camera to image NGC 55, one
of our galactic neighbours.

Taken from the middle of Namibia ;-) with a 10" Meade ACF scope at about
2100mm focal length (AP reducer) on a Vixen Atlux mount, QHY8 camera, 7x15
minutes resized to 66%.

The picture can also be found at
http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp3/55-7x15smallgut.jpg

Stefan