I interrupt the serenity of this group to say:

It's time to restart the "where will we have dinner poll".

I'll restart the poll tomorrow. In the meantime, feel free to post any
changes you'd like to see in the list of restarants. For reference,
the restaurants in last month's poll were:

Sandrella's
the chineese buffet place 2 doors from Sandrella's
Kelsey's
Liam Maguire's
the Green Door.

-ad

--- In OAFs@yahoogroups.com, "Douglas B. George" <dg@...> wrote:
>
> My observatory has been out of action for months,

Glad to hear you're back in business.

However, being observatory-less, I envy even those with non-functioning
observatories.

-ad

Attilla Danko wrote:
>
> Glad to hear you're back in business.

Thanks.

> However, being observatory-less, I envy even those with non-functioning
> observatories.

I think "non-functioning observatories" are better known as "garden sheds".
That's about all they're good for!

Doug

-----------------------------------

Doug George
dgeorge@...

Diffraction Limited
Makers of Cyanogen Imaging Products
http://www.cyanogen.com

25 Conover Street
Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada, K2G 4C3

Phone:    (613) 225-2732
Fax:      (613) 225-9688

-----------------------------------

Hello,

I plan to be camping in Bon Echo PP near the end of August and would
like to use the Nirvana site. Is the airstip safe? The permission
letter from MNR mentions something about drag racers on the strip? :)
What about animals? Thanks,

Jacob

I don't recally anyone reporting problems with the other people using
the airstrip. I think somone once posted that people from a nearby
bush-party came to see what the weird astronomers were doing, and some
wound-up staying to observe. (Perhaps someone could post a link to
that story.)

On the other hand, there are OAFs who wont go near Nirvana during
hunting season, since hunters tend to shoot first and then ask if they
they can look though the eyepeice.

But mostly,  biggest problems with nirvana are still the mosquitos.

-ad

On 8/1/06, gandalph101 <j.bukczynski@...> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I plan to be camping in Bon Echo PP near the end of August and would
> like to use the Nirvana site. Is the airstip safe? The permission
> letter from MNR mentions something about drag racers on the strip? :)
> What about animals? Thanks,
>
> Jacob
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


--
attilla danko, danko@..., http://cleardarksky.com/csk

Vote for where you'd like to have per-rasc dinner this friday:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OAFs/surveys?id=1853538

-ad

Thanks Keith! I just got my copy of S&T a few days ago, it turned out pretty
nice in print. Maybe one of these years I'll get a pic in their readers
gallery.
I've got a few nice recent lunar pics to show at the meeting this friday.

cheers

Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: "keith.hadley" <yeldahtron@...>
To: <OAFs@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2006 6:29 PM
Subject: [OAFs] Nice OAF moon photo in September Sky & Tel


> There's a very nice photo of the moon in Charles Wood's Sept column of
> Sky & Tel taken by Mike Wirths.  It's a great shot. Check it out.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Sandrella's is leading in the poll. So I'll be there sixish. I suggest
the first oaf to arrive grabs 10 chairs.

link to map and address:
<http://tinyurl.com/jrg5q>



-ad>

Good company at dinner last night. The RASC talks even not-bad.
I manged to do some binocular observing last night at 2am after
moonset. I noted m31 looked much larger than i've previously seen it
in 10x60 binocs from light polluted back yard. I dont think the
lightpollution has decreased, so i figure the transparency was
unusually good last night.

I was a fine night. I hope others stayed up to 2am to enjoy the
darkness.


ad

Yes, the company at dinner was wonderful. And I did enjoy the talks.

When I got home the sky was clear so I dragged out the astro-gear and started
imaging. Ten minutes later the clouds rolled in and stayed until about 2:30 AM.
I then did about 1 hour of imaging but the seeing was not good.

Bob

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Anoyone up for sidewalk astronomy tonight at Chapters in kanata?

We'll have the moon and jupter (during the early part of the evening).

If people are really keen, we could concievably do solar in the late
afternoon. Anyone thing they could find jupiter in twilight so  as to
avoid having an hour with nothing to look at ?

-ad

--
attilla danko, danko@..., http://cleardarksky.com/csk

I could make it tonight. Anyone else?

Frank

   ----- Original Message -----
   From: Attilla Danko
   To: OAFs@yahoogroups.com
   Sent: Saturday, August 05, 2006 3:22 PM
   Subject: [OAFs] sidewalk astronomy tonight?


   Anoyone up for sidewalk astronomy tonight at Chapters in kanata?

   We'll have the moon and jupter (during the early part of the evening).

   If people are really keen, we could concievably do solar in the late
   afternoon. Anyone thing they could find jupiter in twilight so as to
   avoid having an hour with nothing to look at ?

   -ad

   --
   attilla danko, danko@..., http://cleardarksky.com/csk




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

So much for planning.

I hope someone got out tonight.

-=ad

It's clear again, so I'm busily imaging with the FSQ-106 and Canon 20Da.  Here's
the result of 102 minutes on NGC7000, the North American nebula:

http://www.cyanogen.com/doug/NGC7000.jpg (1.5MB)

Imaging and processing in MaxIm DL.  The processing was only basic: calibrated,
aligned, stacked, and basic contrast adjustment.  Reduced the size by half so
you can fit it on your monitor.  I tried slightly fancier processing, but
decided I liked it better this way.  Unfortunately JPEG takes a bit of the punch
out of the stars, but it's still nice.

Doug

-----------------------------------

Doug George
dgeorge@...

Diffraction Limited
Makers of Cyanogen Imaging Products
http://www.cyanogen.com

25 Conover Street
Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada, K2G 4C3

Phone:    (613) 225-2732
Fax:      (613) 225-9688

-----------------------------------

2006 Ottawa Centre RASC Picnic
______________________________

As announced at the August Ottawa Centre meeting, we will be holding
the picnic once again at our home in West Carleton, on Saturday,
August 12.  Arrival time is any time after 3 pm.

This is also the night of the Perseid meteor shower maximum, so bring
reclining lawn chairs if you have them, or blankets, to observe this
best shower of the year!  Of course plenty of telescopes are also welcome.

As usual, we will provide drinks and BBQ, you bring your favourite
meats to cook up.

Other activities available include rocket launching, kite flying, and
trebuchet demonstrations. Bring your own rockets and kites and
payloads not exceeding 5 kg.

The pool will be very nice, so you can come prepared to swim.

Our address is 2572 Upper Dwyer Hill Road. Our phone number is
256-4821. Here's a link to the location:

http://www.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=2572+Upper+Dwyer+Hill+Road,+Carp,+Ontario,\
+Canada&ie=UTF8&ll=45.293969,-76.153793&spn=0.145876,0.390015&om=1

Hope to see you all there!

Rolf and Linda Meier

Hi Doug,

That and your M31 are really great shots.  It seems that a DSLR is a
way to get excellent results.  I'm not sure how much better those
images can be.

-Rolf


--- In OAFs@yahoogroups.com, "Douglas B. George" <dg@...> wrote:
>
> It's clear again, so I'm busily imaging with the FSQ-106 and Canon
20Da.  Here's
> the result of 102 minutes on NGC7000, the North American nebula:
>
> http://www.cyanogen.com/doug/NGC7000.jpg (1.5MB)
>
> Imaging and processing in MaxIm DL.  The processing was only basic:
calibrated,
> aligned, stacked, and basic contrast adjustment.  Reduced the size
by half so
> you can fit it on your monitor.  I tried slightly fancier
processing, but
> decided I liked it better this way.  Unfortunately JPEG takes a bit
of the punch
> out of the stars, but it's still nice.
>
> Doug
>
> -----------------------------------
>
> Doug George
> dgeorge@...
>
> Diffraction Limited
> Makers of Cyanogen Imaging Products
> http://www.cyanogen.com
>
> 25 Conover Street
> Ottawa, Ontario,
> Canada, K2G 4C3
>
> Phone:    (613) 225-2732
> Fax:      (613) 225-9688
>
> -----------------------------------
>

Rolf and Linda wrote:
> Hi Doug,
>
> That and your M31 are really great shots.  It seems that a DSLR is a
> way to get excellent results.  I'm not sure how much better those
> images can be.

Thanks!  Actually, I think I can do better processing on them; I'm not certain
that the color balance is optimal, for example.  Also there seems to be a little
bit of image plane tilt or something; the stars are a bit larger in the lower
right corner.  The Canon adaptor is a little bit loose for some reason.

DSLRs seem to work very well with fast optics, f/5 and better.  They're a bit
fussy to work with, and not as sensitive as CCDs, but given the price the
results are certainly impressive.  Certainly they blow film cameras out of the
water.

Doug

-----------------------------------

Doug George
dgeorge@...

Diffraction Limited
Makers of Cyanogen Imaging Products
http://www.cyanogen.com

25 Conover Street
Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada, K2G 4C3

Phone:    (613) 225-2732
Fax:      (613) 225-9688

-----------------------------------

This came to me from the travel agency that organized the Turkish eclipse
tour and may be of interest to the imagers among us.

Frank

----- Original Message -----
From: "TravelQuest International" <travel@...>
To: <moxie@...>
Sent: Friday, August 04, 2006 7:40 PM
Subject: New S&T Web Site


> Dear Travelers,
>
> Our friends at Sky & Telescope have launched their new website --
> http://SkyTonight.com
>
> This site, brought to you by the people behind Sky & Telescope and Night
Sky
> magazines, is the new online home for both titles as well as their annual
> publications SkyWatch and Beautiful Universe. But SkyTonight.com isn't
just
> a Web site. It's a place where members of the astronomical community can
> come together to share their love of the night sky with each other and
with
> the broader public.
>
> To promote this new website, they are running a photo contest with great
> prizes. Submit your best photos of the eclipse or other wonders of the
sky.
> Take a look at
> http://skytonight.com/BUphoto for the details.
>
> We look forward to seeing the results!
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Pamela Moodie
>
> * ------------------------------------ *
> http://www.travelquestinternational.com/
>
> 'Journeys for inquisitive minds'
> TRAVELQUEST INTERNATIONAL
> 305 Double D Drive, Prescott Arizona 86303 USA
> Tel ++928-445-7754 ? Fax  ++928-445-8771
> within the USA & Canada only: 800-830-1998
>
>
>
>

Rolf wrote, ...

> Rolf and Linda wrote:
> > Hi Doug,
> >
> > That and your M31 are really great shots.  It seems that a DSLR is
a
> > way to get excellent results.  I'm not sure how much better those
> > images can be.


I bet...the T-shirt flat is the secret!
Maybe that can be another maximDL accessory?

./pat browne

Very impressive image, Doug.  Where is your M31 shot located?  Also,
I am always interested in how people take these images (e.g. 100 min
of exposures, 20 X 5 min shots - staked and processed with Maxm
DL/SLR).  Thanks.  I assume that any white T-shirt will do for taking
flat shots.
Paul WB

--- In OAFs@yahoogroups.com, "Douglas B. George" <dg@...> wrote:
>
> Rolf and Linda wrote:
> > Hi Doug,
> >
> > That and your M31 are really great shots.  It seems that a DSLR
is a
> > way to get excellent results.  I'm not sure how much better those
> > images can be.
>
> Thanks!  Actually, I think I can do better processing on them; I'm
not certain
> that the color balance is optimal, for example.  Also there seems
to be a little
> bit of image plane tilt or something; the stars are a bit larger in
the lower
> right corner.  The Canon adaptor is a little bit loose for some
reason.
>
> DSLRs seem to work very well with fast optics, f/5 and better.
They're a bit
> fussy to work with, and not as sensitive as CCDs, but given the
price the
> results are certainly impressive.  Certainly they blow film cameras
out of the
> water.
>
> Doug
>
> -----------------------------------
>
> Doug George
> dgeorge@...
>
> Diffraction Limited
> Makers of Cyanogen Imaging Products
> http://www.cyanogen.com
>
> 25 Conover Street
> Ottawa, Ontario,
> Canada, K2G 4C3
>
> Phone:    (613) 225-2732
> Fax:      (613) 225-9688
>
> -----------------------------------
>

pawb63 wrote:
> Very impressive image, Doug.  Where is your M31 shot located?  Also,
> I am always interested in how people take these images (e.g. 100 min
> of exposures, 20 X 5 min shots - staked and processed with Maxm
> DL/SLR).  Thanks.  I assume that any white T-shirt will do for taking
> flat shots.
> Paul WB

M31 is at http://www.cyanogen.com/doug/M31.jpg

Also, I've posted an improved version of the North American nebula image, at
http://www.cyanogen.com/doug/NGC7000.jpg

Doug

-----------------------------------

Doug George
dgeorge@...

Diffraction Limited
Makers of Cyanogen Imaging Products
http://www.cyanogen.com

25 Conover Street
Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada, K2G 4C3

Phone:    (613) 225-2732
Fax:      (613) 225-9688

-----------------------------------

Here's another FSQ-106 / Canon 20Da image, this time of the PacMan nebula.  It
was 72 minutes of exposure, taken under full moon conditions.  I had some
trouble with background gradients, but I think I got it mostly under control.

http://www.cyanogen.com/doug/NGC281.jpg

Doug

-----------------------------------

Doug George
dgeorge@...

Diffraction Limited
Makers of Cyanogen Imaging Products
http://www.cyanogen.com

25 Conover Street
Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada, K2G 4C3

Phone:    (613) 225-2732
Fax:      (613) 225-9688

-----------------------------------

Again very impressive.  I really like how the core in M31 is not over
done, and how the arms of the galaxy shows alot of detail.  I have a
long ways to go before I produce something half as nice.  Thanks for
sharing.
Paul WB

--- In OAFs@yahoogroups.com, "Douglas B. George" <dg@...> wrote:
>
> pawb63 wrote:
> > Very impressive image, Doug.  Where is your M31 shot located?
Also,
> > I am always interested in how people take these images (e.g. 100
min
> > of exposures, 20 X 5 min shots - staked and processed with Maxm
> > DL/SLR).  Thanks.  I assume that any white T-shirt will do for
taking
> > flat shots.
> > Paul WB
>
> M31 is at http://www.cyanogen.com/doug/M31.jpg
>
> Also, I've posted an improved version of the North American nebula
image, at
> http://www.cyanogen.com/doug/NGC7000.jpg
>
> Doug
>
> -----------------------------------
>
> Doug George
> dgeorge@...
>
> Diffraction Limited
> Makers of Cyanogen Imaging Products
> http://www.cyanogen.com
>
> 25 Conover Street
> Ottawa, Ontario,
> Canada, K2G 4C3
>
> Phone:    (613) 225-2732
> Fax:      (613) 225-9688
>
> -----------------------------------
>

Doug,

Those are great pics, I notice you even caught some dust lanes in
M101, that's not something I've noticed often in M31 pics.  Well
done!

Rob

--- In OAFs@yahoogroups.com, "Douglas B. George" <dg@...> wrote:

>
> M31 is at http://www.cyanogen.com/doug/M31.jpg
>
> Also, I've posted an improved version of the North American nebula
image, at
> http://www.cyanogen.com/doug/NGC7000.jpg
>
> Doug
>
> -----------------------------------
>
> Doug George
> dgeorge@...
>
> Diffraction Limited
> Makers of Cyanogen Imaging Products
> http://www.cyanogen.com
>
> 25 Conover Street
> Ottawa, Ontario,
> Canada, K2G 4C3
>
> Phone:    (613) 225-2732
> Fax:      (613) 225-9688
>
> -----------------------------------
>

There's been a dearth of group-Oafs observing lately.

Not so this Saturday. There are two observing parties:
- observing at Rolf and Linda's place as part of the RASC picnic
- star party at Pinhey's point.

Me, I'm triple booked. My friends are also having a BBQ.

Anyone other than me think the 5/2 split between work-week and week-end
is fundementally wrong?

-ad

Hi Attilla,

>Anyone other than me think the 5/2 split between work-week and week-end
>is fundamentally wrong?

Absolutely!! I opted for the 0/7 split and it was the best decision I ever
made. Now when I image until the sun comes up it doesn't matter.

Bob

Hi Atilla,

You can take in both if you wish!  The picnic starts at 3, and you
can have a wonderful meal and commaradarie with other OAFs.  Pinhey's
point is not till 8, if you want to observe there, but of course
we'll have observing at our place afterward too.

-Rolf

--- In OAFs@yahoogroups.com, "Attilla Danko" <danko@...> wrote:
>
> There's been a dearth of group-Oafs observing lately.
>
> Not so this Saturday. There are two observing parties:
> - observing at Rolf and Linda's place as part of the RASC picnic
> - star party at Pinhey's point.
>
> Me, I'm triple booked. My friends are also having a BBQ.
>
> Anyone other than me think the 5/2 split between work-week and week-
end
> is fundementally wrong?
>
> -ad
>

Hi Attilla,

Ross coming out of hibernation (gimme a Nirvana trip!) here.

I concur that split is fundamentally wrong.  Work has been keeping me up
late but not at the eyepiece lately.

I remember a few years ago when life was simpler, photons were aplenty,
and money was scarce ... I wonder what was better ? ;)

NI!
Ross Taylor

Attilla Danko wrote:

>
> Anyone other than me think the 5/2 split between work-week and week-end
> is fundementally wrong?
>
> -ad

Welcome back Ross. It's been rather a long time.

Do you think the bugs have left nirvana yet? I was thinking of waiting
untill September new moon. (Especcially as I might be going to
Starfest for August new moon).

-ad

I'm in Kingston all day (my son is moving down there), so I
definitely won't make Rolf's; might make Pinhey's if we're back early
enough. Have a great afternoon all.

Richard