From: "milton_aupperle" <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: October 1, 2010 12:58:36 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Images from last night


Hi Folks;


We had clear dark (Mag 4 visual) skies last night, with both "Clear Sky Clock" and NAM forecast predicting low turbulence (basically wrong). I ignored Jupiter (won't be above 30° until 12:30 pm anyhow) and went after some DSO's as it gets dark here by 8:30 pm.


I shot LRGB for NGC 6995 (which is the souther portion of the Veil East nebula in Cygnus) but have only quick processed the Luma in this image:


http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Astro_IIDC/files/DSO/VeilsEast_NGC6995_20100930.jpg


I only captured Luma for NGC 206 (open cluster in the west / south arm of M31) and then just gave up for the night due to turbulence.


http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Astro_IIDC/files/DSO/M31_NGC206_20101001.jpg


The turbulence was really really erratic. I would get these brief sporadic "turbulence" events where the guide star would be jerked about so fast it would literally disappear for 3 to 20 seconds, then reappear for 3 seconds and then jump 20 arc second in any direction. Then it would go calm and the guiding graph would be nearly completely flat. This low frame rate (0.8 fps) mp4 movie:


http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Astro_IIDC/files/Other/M31_NGC206_GuideStar.mp4


shows what a Mag 7.2 star looks like during one of these events. The guide star shown in the last frame of the mp4 movie is about 1/2 as bright as it appears when there was no appreciable turbulence. Except where the star disappeared, Astro IIDC would locate and chase the star just fine.


Have a great weekend..


Milton Aupperle