Traveling to TSP

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Chris Todd

Last year, my wife and I packed up my Prius with all our gear and drove to the Texas Star Party. It took us two and a half days, and while we had some fun on the way, I decided I would fly this year.

But how to bring my scope? Answer: don’t bring my scope, rent someone else’s! So I placed an ad on Astromart, and got a response from a really nice gentlemen in Abilene.

So I packed all my eyepieces, camera gear, and AstroTrac in a carryon and flew into Abilene yesterday. After meeting Joe and seeing his awesome observatory and other projects (he is currently restoring a 14″ classical Cassegtain he got from a local university), I drove six hours to Fort Davis.

Last night, I stayed at the Limpia Hotel, a charming building that has been around more than a hundred years. If you like historical buildings, you’ll like this. In addition to the charm, the bed was comfortable, the shower was hot, and the food in their new bistro was good. You can’t ask for much better.

I had breakfast this morning at the Drug Store, which isn’t a drug store any more, but a great restaurant with an art gallery upstairs.

After breakfast, I got in line at Prude Ranch to get in for setup. The line was nowhere near as bad as at the Winter Star Party, and I was probably tenth in line. I got a great spot at the North end of the upper field and had most of my stuff setup in less than an hour.

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New Nepenthes terrarium

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Chris Todd

Amy had a brilliant idea about what to do with the empty 65g fish tank in the kitchen – move all our Nepenthes into it!

We’ve been keeping our Nepenthes in a 75g terrarium in our laundry room, but to see them meant you were doing laundry, LOL. Now they are in our kitchen and that’s much nicer.

20120404-202619.jpg

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Longwood Gardens Orchid Extravaganza and SEPOS Orchid Show

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Chris Todd

Amy and I spent a lovely day (despite the rainy weather) at Longwood Gardens on Saturday. We had never been to Longwood before, but this will not be the last time; it’s a really beautiful facility.

The main reason we went, though, was for the orchid show and the orchid vendors. :-) There were quite a few of our favorite vendors there, including Black Jungle, Woodstream, Parkside, and others, and they earned our cash by bringing beautiful and desirable plants. We bought:

Paphiopedilum Shin-Yi William (William Ambler #3 x rothschildianum “New Horizon” AM/AOS) from Parkside Orchids in bud:
Paphiopedilum Shin-Yi William
Paph. Shin-Yi William flower closeup

Paph. sukhakulii from Andy’s Orchids:
Paph. sukhakulii

From Woodstream, we bought:
Paph. venustum:
Paph. venustum (you can't have too many of these!)

Paph. phillipinense var album:
Paph. phillipinense var album

And three orchids in flask, Paph. callosum forma thailandense, Paph. venustum var pradhanii, and Paph. dayanum:
Three Paphs in flasks

Amy could not resist buying a Vanda ‘Sansai Blue’ in the gift shop (previously bloomed from one of their shows, so it was half price):
Vanda 'Sansai Blue'

And finally, from Black Jungle, we got a nice sized Nepenthes spectabilis ‘Pangulobau’:
Nepenthes spectabilis 'Pangulobau'
N. spectabilis Pangulobau pitchers
N. spectabilis pitcher closeup

I took tons of pictures of the SEPOS Orchid Show and the Longwood Gardens facilities:

Posted in 54g corner bowfront, 75g terraria, Nepenthes spectabilis 'Pangulobau', Orchids, Paphiopedilum Shin-Yi William, Paphiopedilum dayanum, Paphiopedilum phillipinense var album, Paphiopedilum sukhakulii, Paphiopedilum venustum, Paphiopedilum venustum var pradhanii, Vanda 'Sansai Blue' | Comments Off

WSP 2102 Recap with pics and time lapse

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Chris Todd

Well, I’ve had a chance now to completely process all the pictures I took at the Winter Star Party, and reflect on the event. It was definitely one of the best star parties I’ve ever attended, in part because I got to share so much of it with my family, but also because the weather was incredible, the observing was fantastic most nights, and pretty decent the others.

On Monday and Tuesday nights, I took time lapses that I’ve posted to Vimeo (for some reason, the video embedding is not working with WordPress right now). Definitely watch it in HD:
https://vimeo.com/38301021

I spent the whole week trying to get decent deep-sky wide field astrophotography, and finally it all paid off, and I captured this shot of part of the constellation of Orion using a 200mm lens:
The Great Orion Nebula, the Running Man nebula, the Flame Nebula, and the Horsehead Nebula.

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WSP 2012 Thursday night

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Chris Todd

I guess the astronomy gods wanted to exact some revenge. Whereas Wednesday night was one of the best observing experiences of my life, this was one of the most frustrating. It was very humid with no wind, and dew attacked everything for the first time this week. My primary and secondary mirror were soaked in less than an hour, so I had no chance to observe through the 18 because I was trying do some photography with the AstroTrac using the 24mm lens, framing Orion and the winter milky way. By the time I got everything polar aligned, framed, and focused, and started taking two minute exposures, the lens was dewing up despite having a few strap around it.

So I switched to the 72mm AstroTech because it has a dew shield, and tried to do the Orion nebula. Something must have changed when I put that scope on, however, because the polar alignment was off, and I had trailing stars in exposures as short as 10 seconds.

So before 11 pm, I packed up all the AP stuff, and contemplated uncovering Amy’s Orion to do some observing, but decided instead to roam the field and see if I could mooch views through other people’s scopes. Everyone else was affected by the dew, however, and few scopes were actually in operation. One that was running was a 32″ f/3.6 Webster that was here last year, and who I had also seen at Cherry Springs two years ago. He had it on Mars, and it was the most amazing view I’ve ever seen. It was way better than any photograph done by anyone in HAL. It was simply astonishing.

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