Just stay home and go to bed! :S Yesterday morning, I decided that I would make the 45 minute trip to my darksky site, so I packed up the gear, headed east at 9am, setup my equipment, headed back home so I could attend my sons baseball game at 3pm. As soon as the game finished (his team won.. 
), I made a beeline back to the site, noticing on the way that the skies had turned hazy and it looked like heavy fog to the south...ignoring these warnings, I arrived at the site just before dark. The skies were transparent and steady, but you could feel the moisture in the air. polar alignment and drift alignments done,dew heater set to medium, I took off to shoot M65...no guide star! Spent an hour working on finding one...When I finally found one, the galaxy was shifted to the left of the chip, but the galaxy was still there. Noticing that each test image seemed to get a little less clearer, I checked the corrector...MAJOR DEW! Out came the blow dryer...with the corrector cleared, I went back to M65...Guiding in RA was horrible...I would run at sub arc second for a few itterations, then make huge jumps...It seemed to settle down, so off to shoot I went..After 5 15 minute sub exposures, the fog had rolled in and here is the result... Turns out, dew had formed again, even with the heater running at full force...oh, did I mention I forgot to bring the dew shield?
Some nights, one should just stay in bed.... :S
Don Spencer
Almost forgot...I also forgot to turn the cooler on on the camera..DOAH!
), I made a beeline back to the site, noticing on the way that the skies had turned hazy and it looked like heavy fog to the south...ignoring these warnings, I arrived at the site just before dark. The skies were transparent and steady, but you could feel the moisture in the air. polar alignment and drift alignments done,dew heater set to medium, I took off to shoot M65...no guide star! Spent an hour working on finding one...When I finally found one, the galaxy was shifted to the left of the chip, but the galaxy was still there. Noticing that each test image seemed to get a little less clearer, I checked the corrector...MAJOR DEW! Out came the blow dryer...with the corrector cleared, I went back to M65...Guiding in RA was horrible...I would run at sub arc second for a few itterations, then make huge jumps...It seemed to settle down, so off to shoot I went..After 5 15 minute sub exposures, the fog had rolled in and here is the result... Turns out, dew had formed again, even with the heater running at full force...oh, did I mention I forgot to bring the dew shield?Some nights, one should just stay in bed.... :S
Don Spencer
Almost forgot...I also forgot to turn the cooler on on the camera..DOAH!
Attached Image:
Don Spencer
http://members.cox.net/ecdon/astrophotography.html
