ASTRO: NGC 3521

We had some "clear" nights in February. Using "clear" because transpareny
was really really bad, especially as low as NGC 3521 is hovering here at +52
degrees. Should have imaged Jupiter (and I did ;-) instead.
NGC 3521 is probably a quite bright object, but I needed four nights and 11
hours to get _something_. SQM-L was 18.8, which is not bad for Berlin, but
the SQM-L says nothing about transparency. Sometimes it was also quite windy
which forced me to change to a smaller scope (8" GSO RC). I also did some
filter tests (Astronomik CLS and IDAS LPS-P2, both were not really helpful),
so processing this image was quite a mess.

Taken from Berlin with a 10" Meade ACF and 8" GSO RC on a G11 mount, Trius
SX694 camera.

Stefan

Even under good skies I'd think that one difficult from your LP skies. I did fairly well here when I had dark skies but didn't put enough time in to catch the faint plumes very well. Got good detail on the galaxy however.

We are having severe transparency issues here too. Though 52 is really warm. We hit 0C for the first time this year today. Nights have been down in the -30 range when sort of clear. If really clear seeing is 6" or worse. This weather is driving me nuts. I hope that 52 was Fahrenheit not Centigrade! I've never seen close to 52 in February here. We hit 36F once in February which was a record. Normally we stay below -10C for a high and often go weeks never getting above -18.

Rick

Originally Posted by Stefan Lilge

We had some "clear" nights in February. Using "clear" because transpareny
was really really bad, especially as low as NGC 3521 is hovering here at +52
degrees. Should have imaged Jupiter (and I did ;-) instead.
NGC 3521 is probably a quite bright object, but I needed four nights and 11
hours to get _something_. SQM-L was 18.8, which is not bad for Berlin, but
the SQM-L says nothing about transparency. Sometimes it was also quite windy
which forced me to change to a smaller scope (8" GSO RC). I also did some
filter tests (Astronomik CLS and IDAS LPS-P2, both were not really helpful),
so processing this image was quite a mess.

Taken from Berlin with a 10" Meade ACF and 8" GSO RC on a G11 mount, Trius
SX694 camera.

Stefan

Rick,

I should have mentioned that I was talking about +52 degrees northern
latitude :-)
We had +18 degrees Celsius today, which was quite nice, much better than +52
:-)
Actually there were few days this winter that had daytime high temperatures
below 0 degrees Celsius and we only had three days with snow for the whole
winter. Quite a change to a few years back when I was considering to buy an
off-road vehicle to get through all the snow we had.

Stefan


"WA0CKY" schrieb im Newsbeitrag ...


Even under good skies I'd think that one difficult from your LP skies.
I did fairly well here when I had dark skies but didn't put enough time
in to catch the faint plumes very well. Got good detail on the galaxy
however.

We are having severe transparency issues here too. Though 52 is really
warm. We hit 0C for the first time this year today. Nights have been
down in the -30 range when sort of clear. If really clear seeing is 6"
or worse. This weather is driving me nuts. I hope that 52 was
Fahrenheit not Centigrade! I've never seen close to 52 in February
here. We hit 36F once in February which was a record. Normally we stay
below -10C for a high and often go weeks never getting above -18.

Rick

Stefan Lilge;1289476 Wrote:
We had some "clear" nights in February. Using "clear" because
transpareny
was really really bad, especially as low as NGC 3521 is hovering here at
+52
degrees. Should have imaged Jupiter (and I did ;-) instead.
NGC 3521 is probably a quite bright object, but I needed four nights and
11
hours to get _something_. SQM-L was 18.8, which is not bad for Berlin,
but
the SQM-L says nothing about transparency. Sometimes it was also quite
windy
which forced me to change to a smaller scope (8" GSO RC). I also did
some
filter tests (Astronomik CLS and IDAS LPS-P2, both were not really
helpful),
so processing this image was quite a mess.

Taken from Berlin with a 10" Meade ACF and 8" GSO RC on a G11 mount,
Trius
SX694 camera.

Stefan


--
WA0CKY

I should have figured that out. I wondered why you'd use Fahrenheit degrees.

Our winter was also unusually mild. We normally have a few days of -40 or colder but none this year with -34.8C being the coldest my weather station recorded. But it was the near total lack of snow. Much of the country set records for snowfall. That's because they got all the snow we should have gotten. Many of our snowbirds that go south for winter and return March 1 returned to find their septic systems frozen solid. No snow meant to insulation and the alternating warm-cold drove the frost a lot deeper than usual so unused systems or even used ones that have little insulation froze up this year. When we put ours in the cost of full insulation was only $100 additional but most won't pay and suffer $600 bills to steam out the frozen system so they can flush a toilet again.

Lack of snow means lakes will be very low and wildlife that depends on snow to survive cold will have low populations come spring (grouse will be especially hurt -- I've seen many dead ones around my place. Well the piles of feathers left after the fox get done with them.

Now we have unusually warm weather after -34 only a couple days ago. Next 10 days will have highs of 6 to 8 C. What little snow we got (about 10 cm on the ground) will melt in exposed areas though in protected low swampy areas the ice will prevent any melting for a long time. April has seen 1 meter snows so we still could get clobbered.

The old blower I use to clear the kilometer of road to the township road wore out from heavy use so rather than replace half its parts I got a new improved model this fall. Still sitting unused in the garage. It's so good it clears the snow just sitting in the garage! A 20 cm snow forecast caused me to finally put it on the ATV but that turned into a 3cm snow so it was never used. Old one took an hour to install with two people. New one one can do it in less than 5 minutes. So I should take it off but it is working so well I hate to tempt fate. And I'm lazy.

Now if these clouds will move out so I can actually catch a few photons. No snow this winter but far more clouds than normal. Very frustrating.

Rick

[quote=Stefan Lilge;1289524]Rick,

I should have mentioned that I was talking about +52 degrees northern
latitude :-)
We had +18 degrees Celsius today, which was quite nice, much better than +52
:-)
Actually there were few days this winter that had daytime high temperatures
below 0 degrees Celsius and we only had three days with snow for the whole
winter. Quite a change to a few years back when I was considering to buy an
off-road vehicle to get through all the snow we had.

Stefan