Woke up a little before four this morning. Well, actually, with the way my internal alarm clock works I woke up at 1 at 2 at 3 and a few points in-between. The sky was twinkly clear with the moon not quite above the tree line. I dragged the telescope outside to give it time to cool down and brewed a pot of coffee.
Hot coffee in hand, barefooted and in a robe out on the cool damp deck, I swung the telescope over to Pleiades to take a peek. Mars was out of the question, too low above our roof-line for the scope to see. I think Faith will be thrilled with my new plans for a rooftop observing deck!
About that time the Moon was untangling itself from the last of the branches so I lined the telescope up and took a look. Holy crap! What a view! The pictures hardly do justice to the stark and stunning lunar surface. Even in its diminished state the Moon is extremely bright. I experimented with positioning the brighter section out of the eyepiece view so I could examine the shaded areas. Very cool.
After that it seemed anti-climatic to look anywhere else, although I did check out Saturn and some of the stars on Orion's belt. By that time the sky started getting lighter and the night sky called it quits once again.
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Jer,
Agreed, very cool lunar photos. Did you take that photo with your A70? If so, I'm even gladder that I purchased that model.
In case you or anyone's interested, I'm into ginger beer, batch the third. This one's the fizziest yet. Addenda to the recipe for batch, the second, are on my 'blog.
Thanks,
Mike.
All photos are taken with the A70 now. It's kind of strange taking photos through the telescope since there's an amazing variety of lens setups, focusing options, and light control variations to contend with.
You must have a monster fridge to hold so much Ginger Beer! One thing I noticed is that depending on where you put it in the fridge the fermentation may still continue, albeit at a slower pace. In other words don't misplace one in the back of the fridge or you'll hear about it in a month or so!
Too true, Jer, too true. This batch is very, ahhh, lively. Lucky my roommate and I got through about a gallon every few days.
I saw your pipe, pond and wire woes...All I can say is it gives me new respect for the wiring contractors on a rapid transit job I did some work on this summer. Having to yank wires for signalling, traction power, switching, communication... through banks of 4" conduits, each a few hundred yards long... Must be just brutal. Good luck on that!
Mike.