Where is my sensei astro_rick?

[Jerry_K]

Whatever happened to Rick? Did he changed his ID? Does anybody know?

[AaronSmall]

Look for him under "astroman133".  I was wondering where he was myself right after this forum started.  He was listed under members.

[Jerry_K]

Thanks Aaron. I have learned so much by following his posts on all the forums we both frequent.

Jerry

[AaronSmall]

You should read his most recent on the ASCOM driver for Meade.  He impresses me every time.  

 

I'm jealous of his sky conditions too (he's in AZ where they don't have my southern humidity).

[Jerry_K]

Never mind humidity, how about no imaging since late November? It is either cloudy or clear but too cold to be outside. What a winter! Rick is smart to get the hell out of Ohio.

Jerry

[Jerry_K]

I know that Meade is now in Chinese hands but so is Celestron, yet Celestron has good working ASCOM drivers. I know, I have used both for GEM (AVX) and AltAz (NexStar) mounts, they work flawlessly.

 

You should read his most recent on the ASCOM driver for Meade.  He impresses me every time.  

 

I'm jealous of his sky conditions too (he's in AZ where they don't have my southern humidity).

[astroman133]

Jerry,

 

I haven't gone anywhere.

 

With the old Yahoo group I got posts in near real-time and could respond quickly.  I don't think that that is possible with the new forum.

 

I had almost completed a long-winded report of what I have been up to and accidentally closed my browser....The report was lost.  I was up late last night attending a Messier Marathon and am too tired to try to re-create the original.  That was another thing that I liked about responding to posts from my email client.  The draft messages are saved, so no accidentally lost posts!

 

Anyway,  here is my latest image with BYE. 

 

 

 

Even with a 4X Powermate, my refractor does not have enough focal length to do justice to Mars, so not a particularly memorable effort. Still the extensive ice cap near the southern polar region is visible, as well as the smaller northern pole.

 

Take care,

[s3igell]

Messier Marathon - the TAAA one down at CAC ??  Or the SAC-EVAC one at Hovatter ??

 

I spent the night at Hovatter doing an Imaging version of the Messier Marathon.  Using BYEOS to shoot 3x 60s 1600ISO exposures via my 550D on a 8in Astrograph Newt / CGEM rig, I was able to capture 60 "M" Objects (significantly obstructed by uninvited cloud-cover that effectively shutdown the Marathon about 2:30AM).

 

BYEOS really helped with managing the Filenaming / Directory organization, as I was rushing through the Target List to beat the clouds...

[astroman133]

The Huachuca Astronomy Club had an event at a member's observatory. That is what I attended.

 

The sky conditions were near perfect. Between the sky conditions and the good horizons I was able to see several objects that I had never been able to see in Ohio.

 

My favorite view was M 84, M 86 and The Eyes (NGC 4435 & NGC 4438) along with NGC 4387 and NGC 4388 all in the same FOV.

 

If I get a Hyperstar Lens for my EdgeHD, I may try to image the Messier Catalog in a night.

 

Still getting 60 Messier objects in a night is a very good effort.