BANG! BANG! BANG!

No, this is not M45, the "ACP" Nebula. This is my latest piece of astronomical gear, a Kimber 45 ACP Pro Carry II TLE.

"Why" you ask? I'll explain...

Doing astronomy means hanging out in very dark places, very late at night. In my wanderings I have encountered feral hogs and many packs of wild dogs (as well as all sorts of other odd creatures). But recently I added "gangbangers" to my list of nocturnal visitors.

My buddy Trey and I went to local park in Garland, TX to test out my new TEC 140 scope. I had all my gear set up and we were digging views of the moon when... BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! Five shots rang out from a passing car about 15o yards from us. Moments later, a carload of gangbangers pulled into the dark parking lot with us. As they appeared to size us up, Trey and I stealthily (and quickly) broke down my gear and split! I really did think we were going to have some drama, but we bolted without incident.

Anyway, I hate having to think about protection while enjoying the peaceful and awesome views of the heavens... but I also hate the idea of being attacked by marauding creatures (four-legged OR two-legged).

Hmmm... I wonder how my new gun would look with a scope?

M11 and Dust

Here is one last image from Okie-Tex. In fact, it is the last image I took there, on the last night. I did not have much time as the target was dropping over a hill. In fact, I ran out of time and did not collect ANY Green channel data. But I was able to create a "synthetic Green" from the Red and Blue channels. It actually worked pretty well.

M11 is the star cluster in the upper left, with several Barnard dark nebulae towards the right.

By the way, this image is severely cropped (because I actually DID photograph the top of the hill as this one dropped low).

Stats:
FSQ 106Ed f/5
STL-11000M -20
LRB (100,20,20)
Synthetic Green from RB
CCDStack, CS4

Sharpless 129

Yep, that's what this one is called -- number 129 in your Sharpless catalog. The nebula is a very large area of Hydrogen Alpha emission. It looks to me like a supernova remnant, but I cannot find info to that effect. Anybody out there know?

This is another image I shot during Okie-Tex star party in September. I finally got around to processing it (been gone a while). But I am finally about to get after some more photons as I head to the 3RF Astronomy Campus in West Texas for a few days of imaging!

In other news, I have added a new "baby" to my telescope family... a TEC 140 refractor!
Still waiting for a robofocus bracket, but I should be able to try it out soon. Watch these pages for first light pictures from this neato hunk of glass : )