It was cold and windy up on the Peak last night. It got very very wet too.
At times we were all socked in, but then the clouds would pass by (or
*through* us). We got soaking wet at times, then at times it got better. By
morning I noticed that the dew had frozen on the seat of my observer's
chair.
The wind blew strong all evening too. The skies were very dark and
transparent when they got clear, but we did have some cloudiness for a
couple of hours.
One highlight of the night was seeing Canopus. Being 52deg/40min south, it
rose for a short time: it popped up at 9:21 and transited at 9:44 and was
down a bit after ten.
Peter Natscher tipped me off about it. He said it would only get 2deg above
the horizon. It was easy to see in binocs when the clouds cleared.
I was playing with my new ST10XE camera and a new guidescope combination. I
had lots of changes from my time-proven rig from last summer(using the FLI
camera), so I had a lot of fussing and shaking down to do. I only got a few
Ha "test shots". Next time I expect fewer problems.
here are the first light shots:
http://www.rdcrisp.darkhorizons.org/ST10XE_first_light_page.htm