Persieds at Canyon of the Eagles
We went to Canyon of the Eagles on Saturday night, August 11 2001 with several members of the Austin Astronomical Society, to view the Persieds Meteor Shower and also to try out our new CCD Camera. This was our first gathering with AAS. The meteor shower was great. The sky was clear, a cool breeze kept the warm evening very comfortable, and we saw some spectacular meteors.
We did not bring the telescope for this trip. We mounted the ST-237 camera, wearing nothing but a 50mm f1.8 terrestrial lens, on a tripod. Then we cooled the camera down to 5 Deg C. I tried locating some objects (I even managed to find Mars), but without a spotting scope it was no easy feat for me. Leonard Harvey, one of the AAS club members, came by to see what we were up to, and volunteered to locate some interesting objects for us.
Of course, capturing a meteor with the CCD camera was out of the question (what are the odds of THAT happening), but with Leonard's help, we were able to capture several other celestial objects. I was suitably impressed with the ability of the camera to pull "seemingly" invisible objects out of the sky with such clarity, not to mention Leonard's remarkable ability to find them.
Next weekend, we bring the telescope.
The big ball on the right is Mars. But what's that long fuzzy thing in the upper left had corner? Possibly a galaxy....
M31 - the Andromeda Galaxy
M51 - the two fuzzy things close together just a little up and to the right of center.
M7 - an Open Cluster in Scorpio
M7 again (lower left) with M6, another Open Cluster (upper right)
Coat Hanger Asterism - This is the group of relatively bright stars in the center of the view. (The coat hanger is upside down.) Unlike a star cluster, where all the stars are gravitationally related, an Asterism is just a coincidental alignment of possibly unrelated stars.