New image from Okie-Tex 2010: Comet Hartley and the Double Cluster. This picture from images collected Thursday night as the comet approached the cluster (click image for full size).

Visually observing the comet that night through binoculars and telescopes was nowhere near as interesting as the picture. My eyes were seeing a faint gray smudge lost in a sea of stars.  Unfortunately this comet never got as bright as they initially predicted.

Its been a struggle to get a reasonable picture out of the images I took that night. The comet moved very fast relative to the stars which led to smearing. This is easily seen looking at one of the raw images:

Click the image on the left for a full size crop of one single exposure, two and a half minutes in duration.  Note how the comet leaves a small streak rather than a sharp image.  For my skills this has presented a problem in combining the multiple exposures into one picture. So I ended up with a ill-defined and smeared comet. I’ll keep working on it though.

This year the Okie-Tex Star Party was held October 2 through October 9th and the weather was very good.  There were six consecutive nights of clear or mostly clear sky, this maybe a record for the Kenton site. The weather might not have been ideal for everyone, persistent gusty winds typically started at darkness and lasted until 2:00am in the morning. Temperatures were unusually mild during the night with lows around 54° F (Saturday morning was lowest at 44°F). I will post temp and SQM data later.

While I imaged many targets throughout the week I had two particular photographs in mind: Comet 103P/Hartley 2 and the morning Zodiacal light. The comet I shot every night and have a pile of imaging data to reduce.

My Zodiacal light plan almost became an epic failure. I needed all night energy as its best around the end of darkness (start of morning twilight) and petered out on several nights.  In fairness most of us had a tough time Wednesday night, it started out cloudy and we broke out the beer, then it cleared up! Friday morning arrived with decent skies,  I was fired up and ready to go. I ascended to my planned location to find I had miscalculated the relationship of the star party field and the Zodiacal light.  To say I was pissed at myself is an understatement. With little time remaining I descended and repositioned myself on top of a boulder further north. Anyone awake in that area probably thought a bull was stumbling down the hill and through the uncut field.  To make matters interesting I fell off the boulder my first attempt climbing it,  the entire journey would have made a comical movie. Perseverance paid off, thumbnail to the right is the best image taken at the very end of darkness (click for full size version).

More updates and images to come later.

New image: From my April 9th trip to the Flint Hills, click image for bigger version.

My favorite picture from the night. The wind at the time was strong and this part of the grass fire is raging. Its hard to get a sense of how much area is on fire in this picture. Miles and miles. Look in the lower right corner where you make out a couple of  horses, these are about a quarter of a mile away from me.

There is always a risk they’ll be burning the Flint Hills this time of year, its usually just a smoky annoyance.  I never intended to end up surrounded by fire but it was a  cool sight.

Today is the Vernal Equinox and I have four fresh inches of snow on the ground. One week ago today I setup at Monument Rocks under clear skies. Wild weather.

New image: Markarian’s Chain. Click thumbnail on the right for larger version.

Last trip was not only a new location but the first using different pieces, parts and techniques in the field:  ST80 guidescope w/SSAG and a new perl script to control PHD dithering and camera exposures.  In addition, this week I used DeepSkyStacker (DSS) to stack the exposures. Highly recommended.

Monument Rocks Kansas: an interesting trip this last Saturday.  I’ve been considering this dark sky location for months and the weather appeared good for the 13th.  Things worked out pretty well, weather was acceptable and I managed to image a few things. I’ll post something soon.

Update 03.17.2010: Picture of the Zodiacal light taken about an hour after sunset Saturday evening. Click for larger version.

The Zodiacal light was a big reason I wanted to go somewhere dark.  Somewhere free from light pollution in the west. This time of year, from about February to April, the evening Zodiacal light is at its best.  The view last Saturday was nice, very nice.  An even better view will be the week of April 5th:  the planets Mercury and Venus will be highest in the cone of light.

Daylight savings time kicked in while I was out under the stars,  2am became 3am right before my eyes.

Location and timing are everything when observing meteors. This years Leonids were predicted to have higher than normal activity at peak, which unfortunately for me would occurred over Asia. However, one never knows what might happen with this infamous shower so I was intent on observing it. After monitoring weather conditions for days it was obvious I had to head west to find clear skies.

The image on the right (click for larger version) is looking south from my observing location at ‘Point of Rocks’ in Cimarron National Grassland . A Leonid meteor streaks through the sword of Orion over the town of Elkhart, Kansas. I directly observed this meteor and stopped the camera shooting sequence after seeing it. Whats amazing is that  I observed a fairly bright meteor streak across the sky and what the camera caught was this small streak. Capturing meteors is difficult!

My count of Leonid meteors was small, less than 10 per hour, which is about normal for this annual shower. As predicted a peak occurred over Asia and I bet it was a nice show. Below is a graph adapted from the IMO Leonid 2009 live data with my observing time frame highlighted. Timing is everything.