Winter Star Party Part 3

The fifth night it rained all night, which ended up providing fantastic skies for the sixth night. I tried a few objects early on, but they didn’t come out too well. I waited until around 2 AM and started taking shots in Centaurus. The first is the radio galaxy Centaurus A. This was with the Astrotech and 60DA, ISO 1600, 49 x 1 min.

I had tried Omega Centauri on earlier nights, but I got a fantastic shot this evening with stars resolved in the core. This was with the Astrotech and 60DA, ISO 1600, 35 x 30 sec.

Following my earlier shot of Scorpius, I had been dying to get a good shot of the Milky Way region visible in the edge of that and I got my wish tonight. here’s the resulting shot. This was with the Astrotrac and 60DA, 50mm, f/4, ISO 1600, 16 x 5 min.

The highlight of this image is the Pipe Nebula in the middle.

Following this shot, I couldn’t resist a similar shot of Sagittarius with the same settings. It was getting light so I only ended up with three shots here.

I then took one really wide field shot of Scorpius and Sagittarius as twilight was starting to break. Venus is the incredibly bright star at the bottom left.

Finally, i watched the sun rise over the ocean. I swear I saw a reverse green flash, but the coolest thing I saw, which I’ve never seen before, was a mirage sun. This is caused by refraction (ie a mirage). You can see it on image it looks like there are two suns. I’m also not sure, but I might have gotten a solar prominence (thought it might just be another atmospheric effect).

That was the last of the pics from the Winter Star Party. I had a great time there and hope to get back again sometime.