Going on Vacation - Texas Star Party

Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS

05/14/2004 11:50:35 AM · #1

I will be going to the Texas Star Party very early this Sunday morning for a week of telescope bonding time.

My main goal this year is to get a MUCH nicer image of the Milky Way than what I got last year.

Milky Way

This is a SINGLE image of 150 seconds. I have a few other goodies that I did not have last year so hopefully I can get a much sharper image and more images to stack for greater detail.

one of the vendors last year had a satalite internet connection with a wireless router and let a lot of people use it. Hopefully they will be there again this year.

James

Canon EOS-60D

05/14/2004 12:09:00 PM · #2

Well how cool is that! Where are you heading for this telescopic bonding experience? That is just awesome. Bring back lots of pics for us to ooh and aah over!

Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II

05/14/2004 01:21:03 PM · #3

I am going to Ft. Davis, in the Davis Mountains (yes texas has Mountains). Its held at the Prude Ranch, which is a dude ranch, so there are day time activities as well.

Hopefully I can get some decent astro photos this year, my astrophotography skills really need a lot of work. I would really like to get a galaxy or 2 and some star clusters and a few Nebula

James

marbo

Nikon D5000

05/14/2004 01:53:02 PM · #4

Thats a cool milky way shot James. What causes the field rotation in the corners?

I would love to visit the texas star party one day to experience the dark skies. Here in the UK im lucky to get mag 4 skies and the light pollution is a big problem. I tried a long exposure of the milky way once but just got an orange frame :(

My best result so far has been through an 8" telescope.

Make sure you post some pics for us.

Clear skies

Mark

Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM

05/14/2004 02:48:53 PM · #5

I live in Houston and the skies are not very nice here. In Ft. Davis we are in a dry climate @ about 5,000 ft of elevation and the closest significant light source is 25 miles away from Alpine TX and thats a small town, so the skies are really nice, my first visit there It took me 3 days to re-learn what the constatlations looked like...just too many stars out there (whic is a GOOD thing)

the field rotation was probablly due to my scope being mounted in Alt-Az, and a minor slip up on manually guiding the scope.

Its a fork mount Meade LX-90. I now have a Wedge for it so I can get better and longer shots now. So hopefully I will get several nights to just take images. We have a list of mandatory objects to view and log and I want to knock those out the first night.

WOW your Orion image is nice. I have yet to get one that good with my scope. I may have try later in the year when Orion is up in the east early in the evening.

here is a link to more info on the Texas Star Party

Texas Star party

James

wfuller

Canon EOS-40D

05/14/2004 03:01:42 PM · #6

For 150 second exposure, how did you accomplish tracking?

Gordon

RIM BlackBerry Curve

Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM

05/14/2004 03:30:11 PM · #7

There are even little lumps (not quite mountains) at Alpine. It is a one hick town though - not a whole lot there :)

The skies are awesome around that part of west Texas - hope you get good weather!