Astroblog: I Miss My Notebook

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

I Miss My Notebook

I found this picture in a series of images I took some time ago, when I was developing old film with lunar eclipse images on them. It's one of the best images of the Southern Cross region I ever took (click to enlarge, it's better in the originals too). The star images are steady, the Coal Sack is clearly visible and the detail around theta Carina and eta Carina is fine.

When did I take it? Where did I take it? What exposures did I use? I have no idea, as I have lost my note book.

My notebook was an A5 spiral book with black cover and heavy drawing paper and LOTS of pages. But still small enough to conveniently carry with me wherever I went.

I got it when my beloved Bettdeckererschnappender weisle and the kids bought me the 4" scope for Christmas many years back. I put all my observations in it, telescope, binocular, unaided eye. I carefully drew the Moon's craters and the positions of Jupiter's Moons, I sketched Jupiter's cloud bands and Mars's dark markings. I recorded meteor showers and eclipses, sketched passing comets. When I set up the webcam and the SLR, I recorded dates, and times and locations ... and exposure conditions. I had a wealth of photography information in there that allowed me to set my shots up time and again. It would have been a great help with the last Lunar Eclipse. But last camping trip, the notebook went out with me under dark skies, but didn't come back.

I miss all the photography data, but I also miss the history, nearly 10 years of observation were in that notebook. Flipping through the pages could bring back memories of great nights, the ages spent getting the faint details of comets right while the stars arced above, watching meteors scream across the sky while the horizon lightened and the sky filled with birdsong.

I have a new notebook now, almost identical to the old one, but I don't have the memories it contained.

Labels: Observational Astronomy