Dark sky weekend at Crow Valley
Last evening 14 of us in the Boulder, Longmont, and Fort Collins astronomy clubs met at Crow Valley Campground north of Briggsdale, CO for a very enjoyable night under dark skies. Conditions were very good — one of those evening we all hope for but only rarely experience. Excellent transparency, a cloudless sky, no wind, and even fairly warm temperatures for this time of year. Temperatures were in high 40s and 50s early in the evening so most of us were in light jackets until 9 or 10. Turbulence was only fair, about 5/10 most of the evening. It got a bit frosty around 4 am with temperatures in the low 20s. In Colorado you soon learn to bring your cold weather gear along year round, so it wasn’t a problem for most.
I spent most of the evening checking off spring objects in Ursa Major and Canes Venatici. I held off imaging until just before 4 so I could catch Jupiter’s red spot and comet Lovejoy. I tried for 96P Machholz as well, but it was behind the trees to the east.
I managed to get in some practice shooting the crescent moon at dawn in preparation for tomorrow morning and Tuesday evening this week. The shot above was not the best. I had better composition in some earlier shots which I lost due to an incorrect setting in my focusing software — it deleted all but the last image taken. In early shots the moon was lower and the wind mill wasn’t against the tree in the background. Darn… It makes a fairly nice desktop wall paper though, despite the obvious flaws. Here is a 1280×1024 version.
