2-25-17 fundraiser at Crowley

[Sean McDonald]

T-minus 26hrs and counting down.

The weather looks promising for the event, short of excellent, but good enough to give guests a real look at what dark skies reveal. No telling how many telescopes will be there - upwards of 20 I would imagine.  I'm bringing two, because I just couldn't decide which one. Should be chaos for me, lol.   

Most all of the preparations are done, the gear is tuned, batteries fresh, light shield fence ready to go up, foil hat ready....  Let's all hope for clear skies  :-)

Bring a jacket.  Standing outside at night will chill you if you're not prepared.  Or you could huddle like penguins?

Side note:  Iridium flare at 7:47:58 PM in the SSE sky -  Look for it.

[Jonathan Sabin]

I couldn't be happier with the weather forecast for tonight. Almost 100% clear skies, fairly dry, and temps in the low 60s. (Which does mean that it may feel about 10 degrees cooler than that, so definitely bring a light jacket!)

But we're not going to be freezing our rear-ends off like we did last year!

See you all out at Crowley!

[joanmackiewicz]

Sounds good.  See you all shortly!

Joan

[Sean McDonald]

Here are a few of the captures from the Crowley Fundraiser night.  During the evening, guests could see these images on my iPad.   It was fun and stimulating to share this type of star gazing. It certainly is an interesting alternative to visual observing - which is still my favorite way of looking at what's out there - mainly because it is more of a direct connection to the sky than looking at a screen.  But the colors and the details are awesome with the DSLR.   Considering that there were dozens of people walking around the scope while shooting these pictures, they turned out okay.  I still have so much to learn about taking good photos of all the different DSO's!

[Sean McDonald]

and a couple more....

[Jonathan Sabin]

Great images! Thanks for posting!