Van Vleck 3 -- Late Post

So, this year we tried Van Vleck in July.  Overall, it was nice to see the 'ole cabin in its rustic majesty again.

Every year, there seem to be more and more cables in the imaging rig.

I got the suite this time around.  But I found mice droppings on the top of the bunk bed in the corner.

The skies didn't seem to cooperate.   Out of five nights, we only had two that were mostly clear. One of those nights had a fair bit of haze that made the sky less dark than usual.   Most nights we had clouds and it was frustrating to shoot any sequence of images.

I was trying to collect substantial data on M16, the Eagle Nebula, and NGC 7293, the Helix Nebula.  I managed to squeeze about 40 x 5 min frames on M16.  I wanted to go deeper on the Helix so I shot 10 min frames.   I had some odd guiding issues with the Helix and I only grabbed maybe 10-15 okay frames of the Helix.  I haven't really reviewed the data carefully.   The Helix rises about the same time that the Eagle begins to set.  So I thought they would be complimentary targets.  However, the rig would always want to do a meridian flip by the time I was ready to shoot the Helix.   So, I believe the DEC balance was off enough to create issues.

So all of this is to say that I don't have anything to show in terms of astro-images.

A shot taken at 2:46 AM on one of the clear nights...

That's not dawn approaching.  That's Lake Tahoe/Reno.   :/