Thursday (Feb 6th)
After a long period of cloudy and not-astro-like weather conditions the sky finally brightened up today and the sun was shining all day long. Besides the clouds, thick mist covered the sky for weeks. From an altitude of about 900-1200m chances to have a more or less clear sight were reasonably good though.
Since I don't belong to those who drive up to St. Gotthard pass, I just recently found a suitable place for observations and astrophotography, a mere 45 min ride by car away from Zurich. It's on Sternenberg, right next to a tiny village called Gfell, at about 880m above sea-level.

Anyway, I went there yesterday evening with my car fully loaded. I just finished my brand new home-made Battery Power Pack the same day (12V/48Ah in a wodden cabinet, see Astronomy Magazine "January 1996" p.87).
The night's main goal was to capture comet Hale-Bopp on film for the first time. I knew it would rise at around 03:50 CET, so there would be plenty of time before Hale-Bopp.
I took all my Astrophoto-Equipment with me including a (borrowed) lele-lens 500mm f/8 for my Bronica medium format camera. Also I have never tried hypersensitized films yet. Got some from Lumicon(Calif.) a couple days ago. So, the idea was to make as many good shots through the 500mm tele-lens (piggybacked on my 10" LX-200) as possible. Secondly, there was H-B to come later on ...

As I arrived on top of the "mountain" I recognized the milky way instantly! It was right above my head and shining very intensively ... pahhhh, the air was clean! For photography purposes clean air is one of the most important things. While setting everything up, normally done in 30 ... 45 mins, I was freezing already ... brrrrr ... temperature must have been -3°C approx. The 500mm medium format lens has a nice field of about 8°. This is equivalent with a 300mm lens for 35mm films. I was very well aware of not having a "fast" lens (f/8). Initially I calculated exposure times from 30 mins to 60 mins, depending on what the conditions would allow (sky-fog). The film I choose was Kodak Ektacolor Pro Gold 400, also known as PPF. First of all I spotted the Telescope towards Orion, M42. I opened the camera shutter and began to expose (shutter release according to socalled "hat method"). Unfortunately I had to stop this one after only 20 mins due to car headlights nearby .... Later on I also aimed the camera to Mintaka, Alnilam & Alnitak, the famous belt of Orion for another long exposure of 45 mins. Incidentally, I handle the guiding procedure manually through a 12mm illuminated reticle eyepiece.

From 2:00 to 4:00 O'clock CET I struggled with myself for not freezing to death. It was rather tough, waiting for Hale Bopp to appear above the north-eastern horizon. Then, at around 4:00 I found H-B easily through a small group of fir-trees. It's indeed no problem to spot it with naked eye! Through the finderscope (or any binoculars) I recognized its vector-shaped tail and estimated the tails length as to roughly 2 ... 3°. At this time Gamma Sagittae was only 1° north of H-B and Cluster M71 with 40' even closer. I took two pictures of the comet. One was exposed 40 mins and the other only 30 mins on hypered Kodak Ektacolor Pro Gold 400 film. I am really curious on how the comet looks on the pictures ... In case it gets really good, I'd certainly upload one of the picture so that it can be shown to you ...

Hale-Bopp reached about 26° elevation at 06:30 CET, which is quite a hight. It was still visible in the morning dawn after 06:00 O'clock. The comets brightness may be at m2.5 these days.

After I had packed everything together and left the observing site at 07:00, I was happy to have had such a steady nightsky and to have banned H-B on film. There was not a single cloud all night long ... wow.

clear skies to all of you

Michael Rieder, Michael@Rieder.com