Posts Made By: Peter Kennett

Hi follow film nuts!
Here's a shot of M8 taken in July, 2005 with a Meade LXD75 8" SN.
This is a hand guided 40 minute exposure on Kodak E200 slide film.
Enjoy!

Pete

Here's a shot of M31 taken in June, 2005 with a Meade LXD75 8" SN.
This is a hand guided 30 minute exposure on Fujichrome 400F Provira slide film.
Taken with an Olympus OM-1 and focused with an STI Stiletto focuser.
Enjoy!

Pete

Here's a shot of M101 taken in June, 2005 with a Meade LXD75 8" SN.
This is a hand guided 30 minute exposure on Fujichrome 400F Provira slide film.
Photographed with an Olympus OM-1 and focused with an STI Stiletto.
Enjoy!

Pete

Just for fun, this is a very deep exposure taken in July 2005.
It's an extended exposure to bring out faint details.
Can you figure out which this deep sky object is?

Pete

Here's an example of just how wide and flat the LXD75 8" f/4 Schmidt Newtonian is.
This is an uncropped 35mm frame taken at prime focus with an Olympus Om-1.
The exposure was 20 minutes, hand guided on Fujichrome 400F Provira.

Enjoy!

Clownfish

Here's a shot of M20 the Trifid Nebula near M8 (lagoon) in Sagittarius. This was taken with a Meade LXD75 8" f/4 SN and an Olympus OM-1. Focusing done with an STI Stiletto focuser. The exposure was 25 minutes on Kodak E200 slide film and hand guided with a 960mm f/12 refractor. Photo taken on July 2nd, 2005. Enjoy!

CF

Part of the Veil Nebula in Cygnus, this object is the Eastern most part of a huge loop of gas let over from a long ago supernova.

I finally captured this, but I need to re-shoot it and double the exposure time. Now that it is overhead this should be easy..as soon as the sky clears up!

This was taken with a Meade LXD75 8" f/4 Schmidt Newtonian and an Olympus OM-1. Focusing was done with an STI Stiletto focuser. The exposure was 30 minutes on Kodak E200 slide film and hand guided with a 960mm f/12 refractor (as usual!). This was shot on July 3rd, 2005.

The popular North American Nebula taken in early June, 2005. This was a taken with a 135mm f/4 telephoto lens piggybacked on a Meade LXD75. The exposure was 40 minutes on Fujichrome 400F Provira slide film and hand guided with the main 8" SN.

Here is my shot of the very faint Crescent Nebula.
250,000 years ago the outer shell of a massive Wolf-Rayet star began to shed its outer atmosphere, creating this beautiful orange nebula of expanding gas as the star is gives off the mass of our Sun every 10,000 years. Along the edge of the image you can see the much larger emission nebulosity that is over 4700 light years away in the constellation Cygnus. The central star (WR136) will probably explode into a spectacular supernova within the next million years.

Taken July 4th, 2005 from my observatory New Mexico
Meade LXD75 8" f/4 Schmidt Newtonian
Hand guided with an Orion 910mm Guidescope
30 minute exposure on Kodak E200 slide film
Olympus OM-1 and Stiletto Focuser.

The 7th annual White Sands Star Party will be held this year on September 30th and October 1st at the White Sands National Monument (a.k.a. missle range) in Southern New Mexico.

Participants will be allowed to camp directly in the very dark dunes, but not the general public. Also, no one will be allowed in or out from 8: pm to 11:30PM to prevent car lights from interfering with observations. At 11:30 pm all non-campers must exit, and then no one else will be allowed to leave and the rest of the night is DARK and all yours! See the Southern Skies like you’ve never seen before!

There will be guest speakers, trips to the NM Museum of Science History, and free Pizza to participants! Ummmm... PIZZA

And while your in the area, take a trip up to Socorro New Mexico to the Very Large Array (VLA) on October 1st for a free guided tour! You can also swing over and visit the TRINITY test site, where the first Atomic Bomb was detonated in 1945. This is a rare event as the Trinity site normally only offers tours one day a year!

Come on out and enjoy the Land of Enchantment and the incredible Dark Skies of New Mexico!

Website link: www.zianet.com/wssp/
White Sands: www.nps.gov/whsa/
NM Museum of Space: www.spacefame.org/
VLA: www.vla.nrao.edu/
Trinity: www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/TrinitySite/trinst.htm