Last night it finally cleared up after more than a week of bad weather. I knew it was going to be a wet one, but I set up anyway, hoping to get some imaging in before the dew hit.
Here is what I started with, Open Cluster M35 and it's old friend NGC 2158. The stars in M35 are mostly blue but NGC2158 is full of old red stars. They're a nice pair for observing (in fact they made the list in January 2008 Astronomy Magazine's article, "Observe Celestial Odd Couples". Click Here to see a larger version of this image and more details.
But unfortunately I pushed my luck a bit too far and by the time I went outside, a little after midnight, to check on the gear, it was a soggy mess. So I got the hair dryer and spent a while trying to dry things out, but it was rather hopeless. I wonder if any of my neighbors heard and wondered about the crazy guy next door drying his hair outside at 1:00 in the morning! In the end I just covered it up, set the camera to take darks for the rest of the night, and called it quits.
I'm imaging again tonight and everything seems to be fine, so I guess no damage was done by the water. I did hook up my Dew Heater, though, which is something that is almost never needed here in the arid desert.
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