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Exodus |
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The last night on the mountain had perhaps the best viewing with regard to clouds, but the dew conditions were severe. The temperature dropped to the thirties, but the dewpoint was in the forties. I had dew heaters on nearly all my optics, but the unheated secondary mirror in my telescope eventually succumbed, and my imaging came to a halt. With my own telescope shut down, I sought the company and optical performance of those seasoned astronomers in the telescope field. The gentle cacophony of sounds in the field was comforting, and I again enjoyed views of the sky through larger, and dew-free instruments, finally returning to my tent at 5:00am. I woke up a few hours later to the excited report that a telescope had caught fire! Someone had left their telescope aimed low to the horizon, on the ecliptic (the path that the sun makes through the sky). When the sun had risen, it was focused on the eyepiece holder of the telescope. There are not many materials that can withstand a one-foot diameter magnifying glass aiming the sun onto it, and the result was smoke pouring out of the big tube as it started burning! Someone noticed the smoke and turned the telescope away, and the owner will never make that mistake again. Neither will those of us that heard about it. |
There are not many materials that can withstand a one-foot diameter magnifying glass aiming the sun onto it... |
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I met my new friends Mark and Carrie again on this last morning. Mark had spent a good part of the previous night working on getting some pictures from his CCD imaging sensor. After he setup, completed his alignment, focus, and tracking, and taken some trial exposures, he realized that he had just spent the last few hours looking at a computer screen. What he really wanted to do was to look at stuff, and so he put his imaging equipment away and put his eye to the telescope and did visual observing for the rest of the evening. This was just another story confirming to me the importance of actually seeing things visually, yourself, with your own eyes, and the experience that is involved just can't be replaced by a computer screen representation of what's at the eyepiece. |
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I made many acquaintances at this event. I found that most of the attendees were from the nearby population centers of Seattle and Portland and were quite outgoing and friendly. The Pacific Northwest style seems to be one of appreciation for the wilderness and outdoor activities combined with an easy manner quite compatible with my Midwest upbringing. It has been a very pleasant experience. As I packed up and headed down the now-familiar forest road, I was in "traffic", meaning that a number of cars were going down with me. Gratefully, I won't be in the lead. The sky is clear and there's an impressive view of Mount Ranier, off on the horizon as I come down this road; in fact it's so spectacular that everybody in my caravan of cars slows down to take a look at it. It's a nice visual memory to finish this chapter of my Nightscape Odyssey. |
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