Another year is slipping by and the Autumn star party at Kelling is over. After missing friday due to illness we arrived on Saturday in time to catch the trade stands before they closed. From Altair Astro a new dew strap for one of my Canon lenses, dew heater for the red dot finder and a 2″ extension tube for the club’s 20″.
Of course, friday night was one of the best nights of the year. Various superlatives were being used to describe it and I missed it all. Saturday night was supposed to cloud over after midnight but, by the time we emerged from the bar at 9pm the sky was clear and that’s the way it stayed for the entire night until I packed up at 3.30am and retired to the tent.
With the chance of the sky clouding over I rushed the polar alignment and focus. Despite this, the polar alignment worked surprising well and I was able to take 10 minute exposures with the 75-300mm zoom set at 135mm. The focus was less good and I wasted some time before I realised and refocussed. First target was NGC 7000, The North American Nebula. After rejecting the out of focus images a couple had slight trailing leaving me with five 10 minute frames.
