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Night Summer Solstice Thoughts

June 20, 2009

early to find a good area where to park the car. We walked down a road that is between Mazarambroz and Crow, a nice place among olive and almond trees.

were

20:00 pm (local) and we were 33 º C in the shade, with a slight breeze that melted. The meter marked a 25% humidity.

The fields are very dry but the environment in general is green with many trees around and the Montes de Toledo the substance gave a special charm to the landscape.

We planted on flat ground and clear but somewhat closer road which was somewhat annoying at first by the noise of passing cars, but then failed to pass.

field music was soothing: birds flitting sunset, the views of the giant thistles surprised like huge skyscrapers in the city ...

and some other weird bug like this with a bottle, seemed to be upright as if to walk upright.

occasionally looked a partridge or a rabbit hopping across the field, these were huge and they huddled in the shade of trees to cool off.

The sky was blue and cloudless, promising an enjoyable evening.

began to assemble the team, and while occasionally I peered into the binoculars to scan the horizon. Took the opportunity to poke reflex camera to the binoculars to see if I could pick one of the rabbits that had pointed out to my surprise, although they rounded vignetting.

With more zoom. Protruding ears.

After I moved over the horizon and there was something strange, like castle towers, caught my attention because in that area "there is nothing" just as field the map .. What could be the building? Again I have more pictures for an instant and discover what it is.

When we had the most prepared team we became some pictures while we waited for the Polar . For not remove the glasses and using a tripod the picture we got each other and then mount it with photoshop. The result is this, note that we are in different dimensions!

at 22:45 local time we were at 27 º C .

The time before the adjustment to the Polar was ideal for dinner, we took the pan with the tortilla chips and prepared a scrumptious sandwiches. So good I know now!

started adjusting to the Polar and alignment with the stars while Enya's music sounded. It took a lot

obscure, in fact all night did not get to see a completely dark sky fog that had, as a white background (maximum of 20.83 in the SQM-L). Until 3 am did not notice the dark sky, light pollution from nearby towns and you could see the dust and mist combines prevailing in the summer solstice ... we can say that we do not enjoy the best conditions, but hey, really wanted to go and we needed to take away the thorn of the last time we went out and we ran the team. Yo I had a pipe going through star fields with binoculars: Antares and M4, the galactic center, M24, M22, Trifid and Lagoon, Omega, Eagle ... toured the entire Milky Way to the Swan. I make a couple of drawings: Rho Ophiuchi region and M22. But felt much the light background of sky and not find some contrasts known to exist in Sagittarius and Cygnus, so I went to see how he was led to rest the neck and kept binoculars.

Here you can see the two drawings I did:

are made with graphite (HB and H) on white paper, looking through binoculars Vixen 12x80.

The first is a view of Antares, M4 and Rho Ophiuchi through Vixen 12x80 binoculars

haze was noticed around Antares and Rho as if they were connected.

The globular cluster M4 showed splendid but only as a dense ball of cotton, no detail. The night was not very good, the measurement of SQM for tonight did not go beyond 20.83.

Country

4.2 °

View

M22 in Sagittarius. The course was spectacular, full of stars of different magnitudes difficult to draw. Highlighted a small star-shaped arrow with one of its components in a very orange-red tone. The globular was huge, gray cotton, denser toward the i nterior . had a pair of stars marking the limits almost visible. Off the field (to the right of the image) is the bright Gamma Sagittarius. It is the star that marks the top of the "Teapot" summer, used to locate the cluster easily.

The pictures we took to check up were varied and 20 minutes each. shooting with the Canon 350D but this time we use the unmodified version.

When we saw that the computer worked as usual we are very happy, especially after the scare last time. We had set to work on the "this" so we took that little was Scorpio to finish and did some shooting with self-guided, worked perfectly.

Antares, the set Antares with animated M4 ... so we went to rho Ophiuchi and repeat ... but then, once completed and we had to go to another "target" not to reset the hemisphere. It was this or change the parameters in the Sky which entailed re-do the alignment star and not being deloeste night to shoot rockets almost prefer to stay in the east and take some shots at different points before picking up and leave. Tonight we were not looking quite a haul, there are still some things to learn from each output to take full advantage. We learned more and now we are more careful with certain parameters that were once largely not paying much attention, every day we are closer to complete this cycle and we are confident that very soon we will make some unforgettable photographs.

Test images always store them, are useless because they have no signal, with only a 20 minute making little object can be removed (more noise than anything else and especially the brand canon), but as often happens to me ... until these tests delude me. I remember the terrible images with bad track before and I think how I can miss those perhaps just a single shot! Tinkering with Photoshop and keep the results. Here you can see them:

Ophiuchus FIELD: WITH STAR OF BARNARD