July 2015 SkyView Acres

[Neil Heacock]

Under a Bortle 2 sky with friends. 3 nights, but one was a bust with haze or likely smoke from a local fire. I wanted to be at the other location we frequent, but unfortunately it was closed due to large fires in the area. So, the fact that I got 2 decent nights was far better then getting nothing at all.

SkyView Acres is a good spot because it's closer in (only 2.5 hour drive) and nice paved roads all the way to the location. The downside is that there are many distant lights from neighbors and some other buildings and such, so really deep dark adaption is impossible for visual observing making this spot much better for imaging the visual observing.

This time there were quite a few bees around. And it seemed like I set up camp close to a hive because I had loads of bees around the whole time. They were never really a problem with the exception of 1 sting on the toe (I really should not have worn sandals!) but for sure it was less relaxing during the day when there are bees buzzing all over the place.

I wanted to improve on 2 images this weekend. LDN673 and LBN468. I'm not finished processing things yet, but hopefully they will be improvements.

Unfortunately, there was 100% loss of frames on the first night. Second night was better and third night was good as well, but some lingering haze in areas of the sky.

One thing that I learned about using the system (after being gone for so long and coming back to things) is that dark nebulae like these need 10 minute subs instead of the 5 minute subs I normally take. I need to increase my dark library in regards to 10 minute subs for both the stock and modded cameras.

Overall, it was a good time with friends, the images are good (although probably not the level of improvement I was hoping for) and the views of brighter deep space objects was wonderful.

Here is the gallery from this outing
Full Gallery Here -> July 2015 SkyView Acres