raddidge and I had a late breakfast, took Spot for a walk while I looked through the classified section for apartments on the west side and in Manitou Springs. An hour later it was naptime and we slept until 6:38 p.m..
Once again, we hustled out into the night and set up our humble observatory in the field across the way. This time I brought along my digital camera.
Back in September raddidge and I went to the top of Pikes Peak using the Manitou Springs Cog Railway. At the top we took some pictures and leaned against the walls to look down and go "There's Limon" and "There's Colorado Springs". I decided to be crafty and put my digital camera up against my binoculars and was lucky to get this picture. Keeping this concept in mind, I figured I could get the same results with my telescope and my trusty little digital camera.
The results below are going to suck really hard if you are going by the thumbnail pictures. Click on them so you can view the full-sized pics.
First I aimed the telescope at the moon. After gawking at it and taking a few pictures, I spent some time aligning the finder scope so it matched up perfectly with the end of the tube. Next stop was Mars. Since Mars was far from spectacular through my telescope, I didn't take any pictures. At best it was a red disc. Lots of chromatic aberration. Feeling a bit let-down, I aimed at Saturn and had wonderful results. Titan was much closer to Saturn tonight, about one Saturn width compared to the other night where Titan was at least three or more Saturn widths from its mother planet. All measurements are imperial, not metric, unless stated otherwise.
The moon was far too close to the Pleiades, washing out those stars, which left them for another day. Instead I aimed at Orion's sword and found a nebula. Heaven only knows which nebula but it was beautiful. It looked so fragile in that cloud of faint light. At the center of the nebula there were two stars which were very close. Below those stars and outside of the cloud were three stars in a row leading downwards.
One of the strange sights was an African elephant chasing down some people. The poor pachyderm was not in the best of health having sustained a trunk injury. Instead of being a singular nasal tentacle, there was a huge divot that left only a strip of flesh to link the remainder to the body. We pulled over and got out because we had reached our destination. Only when my father looked back did he let us know that the elephant was now after us!
We ran and turned down an alleyway hoping that would've been sufficient to throw the beast off our trail. Nope, the behemoth juggernaut turned around the corner and continued his pursuit. Another turn later and we were back out on a nearby street but this time there was a cop doing meter maid duties. I shouted, "COP COP" to get his attention and he called over one of his associates. Everyone crouched behind a parked car while the police opened fire on the maurauder.
Now the streets and sidewalks decided to get busy and people were appearing everywhere. In their fearful exuberance, the cops would turn and shoot at pedestrians only to return their attention to the now-dead elephant once they cleared the area of people who would get in the way.
