Hello fellow adventures.
Camping or as the cool kids call it, Overlanding, takes you off the beaten path to explore the great outdoors but we’re taking this to a stellar level.
Buckle up, we’re going on a journey to the cosmos via some Space Camping! No we’re not camping in space but it is a front-row ticket to the universe where you can star gaze the heavens and or capture stunning images that reveal details far beyond visual limitations.
Traditional camping gear is required but a telescope and astrophotography equipment is critical for success. Setup does take a bit longer since we’ve complex astro gear to deal with. And since we’re seeking out a location where the main light is raining down from above, there will be no camp fire on this trip.
The destination is pad 64 at Tierra Del Sol (TDS), a dark-sky observation site owned by the San Diego Astronomy Association. The club is based in San Diego California and the site is in Boulevard California, east of San Diego.
The primary deep space target for the night is a galaxy called NGC 772 (New Generic Catalog), also cataloged as ARP 78 (Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies), found in the Aries Constellation. It may also be referred to as the Fiddlehead Galaxy. Earthers have calculated it to be over a whopping 100 million light years away. If your extraordinary enough to own or have access to a spaceship capable of light speed, you could travel it’s diameter in approximately 154 thousand light years. You’d have to reach it first though, so you should pack a lunch.
Smash that play button, adjust the volume, go full screen and adjust the video resolution to the highest your internet and system will support. I hope you enjoy the trip.
This is definitely one of my favorite galaxies to image. Since it was only one nights worth of data, I ended up combining the TDS data with another image session where I rented time from an observatory in Chile.
This final image represents a total integration time less then 5hrs so I’m excited to think what another 5hrs could do.
