Originally posted by ngchunter

No mountain lions here to speak of, the florida panther is exceedingly rare. We do have bobcats, but they don't usually attack humans. The only direct encounter I've had with wildlife while observing so far was a stray black cat that got into my tent one night. Scrared me senseless till I figured out what it was .

Haha. That must have been quite a sight, if anyone was lucky enough to be outside the tent at the time

I also prefer the last version you posted NGC. Very nice work!

I'm curious though - you said "8 dark frames", but the gaps between the stars in your image seem to indicate only 5, assuming you took dark frames at the start and end?

Turns out that cat had a name around the observing field - new moon. He knew that when it was a new moon that amateurs like me would come to that field with tents and trash bags. Sure enough, that's what he was going for when he got into my tent. Smart cat.

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.
I'm curious though - you said "8 dark frames", but the gaps between the stars in your image seem to indicate only 5, assuming you took dark frames at the start and end?

The gaps indicate when I was getting nervous about how the tracking was holding up and taking a moment to inspect the previous image's stars before starting the next exposure - I should have hooked it up to the laptop to download directly so I could go ahead with the next exposure without stopping. I took my dark frames when my battery reached one bar at the end (I didn't go into it with a full charge, unfortunately).

[edit on 25-2-2009 by ngchunter]