The Farm with Doug Biernacki August 18-19, 2020.

A friend with whom Doug and I worked before all three of us retired over the past couple of years allowed us to come to his family’s farm for astronomy. It turns out that Doug and our friend knew of each other from when Doug’s Boy Scout troop when there several time during his childhood.

My focus was on DSO imaging in a dark sky with the Canon EOS 60Da. This was part of an effort to demonstrate to myself that I am ready to graduate to a dedicated, cooled, astronomy camera. My target for this trip was Eastern Veil Nebula, which I successfully imaged and processed.

The sky conditions were very good for us. There were some lingering clouds at sunset that cleared right out. We believe that the sky was Bortle Class 4 or better, as we were able to clearly see the Milky Way.

Fog rolled in at about 0130. We could still see the sky straight up, but mositure was dripping off of our equipment.

Our plan was to image for a long as we wished, and then crash out under the pop up awning. This would prevent us from having to drive an 1.5 hours in the dark while completely exhausted. This all worked well, except dew formed on the inside of the awning and dripped on us while we were sleeping. We woke up cold, wet, and miserable.

This is a great place to do astronomy. It is reachable on short notice and after a short drive. I hope to visit the Farm again. Next time we’ll bring a tent.

© James R. Johnson, 2022.
jim@jrjohnson.et