From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: July 31, 2008 2:43:31 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Re: First Light with PGR GRAS14S5M Camera

On 31-Jul-08, at 2:18 PM, hpholcomb wrote:

Hey Milton,

It's a wonder you got anything at all!  I can see the effect of the wind.

Yep. The motors for both Ra/Dec got a good workout last night trying to compensate for turbulence and wind.

So you now live at 52 deg. north latitude, having remembered the Arctic Circle is at 66 

deg. + some minutes.  Gee, that's above Winnipeg!!

Actually I'm at 51° 1 minute so it's 15.5 degrees south of the Arctic circle. I'd forgotten that the Arctic Circle isn't at 65°, which is odd cause I use to live well north of it (70 to 75°N) when I was a mining geologist. Winters up there are interesting as the sun never rises much above the horizon. Summers are worse cause your always in twilight and that screws up your internal clock making it hard to sleep.

Whereforeareyounow??

Still in Calgary, but 8 km south from the city core where I used to live. On a good night i can almost see Mag 4.5 visually here. At the old place a good night was Mag 2 near the downtown core, which has non stop construction and light pollution among other things going on.  Also I now have the entire western sky to look at as there is no overhanging balcony to hide the stars anymore. To get Mag 5 or better skies, I need to move at least 100 km from Calgary's city boundary, which has kept growing bigger and bigger each year as people flock here looking for work.

TTYL..

Milton J. Aupperle