Lads, I need some info.

How much will this hired car cost you?
You hired it on daily basis or on hour basis?
And from which company?

About us,
for a mini-van, our agent asks 184 EUR for 5 hours rent.
(80km in total=40 km to Verkh Tula region + 40km back to the hotel)
For 7 hours it will cost us 252 euros.
:shock:

Dave L is organising that bit.
I forget what it is costing but is is done through Hertz.

Mickael,
This cost is shared by 10 people, so 252/10 = 25 Euro per person.
That's for the eclipse day, from 1pm to 8 pm
The mini-van has 14 seats! :wink:

Vaggeli,

The Russians are exploiting this eclipse to its fullest by trying to squeeze out every possible euro.

I will be on the top of the hotel roof having the last laugh (at the Russians). Now, if I am lucky and my room has a window to the west, there will be no need for a roof and I will have an even bigger laugh! :mrgreen:

Anthony,
The russians do what they got to do.
We do what we got to do, as well.
We are eclipse maniacs :shock:

I will be on the top of the hotel roof having the last laugh

There is a flat top roof with access now ya?
:wink:

I can see Anthony hanging out of the eves and roof top aerials of the hotel.

As for the car (ford focus), we'll have it from Thursday night when we arrive until Saturday afternoon when we leave, the cost is approx 225e, divided by 4 is 56e each, this is with unlimited miles and full crash and theft cover.
Hopefully we wont be pushing the unlimited miles too much, although we could end up in Mongolia yet ?
Anyone got the Russian rules of the road handy. :wink:

Well, I took some trial exposures this evening.
1/100 to 1/200 sec exposures with the Baader film worked out quite well with my lens.

As for how long an exposure you can have at 400mm focal length without tracking, I reckon around 1.5 secs is the max. You could go 2 secs if you are willing to accept slight trailing. I came to this conclusion after some test exposures on the Moon and Jupiter this evening.

I can see Anthony hanging out of the eves and roof top aerials of the hotel.

I have done worse.

As for the car (ford focus), we'll have it from Thursday night when we arrive until Saturday afternoon when we leave, the cost is approx 225e, divided by 4 is 56e each, this is with unlimited miles and full crash and theft cover.
Hopefully we wont be pushing the unlimited miles too much, although we could end up in Mongolia yet ?
Anyone got the Russian rules of the road handy. :wink:

If you stick around the hotel, I will rent the car battery from you!

By the way, somewhat surprised you are into Novo on Thrusday and not earlier. You are leaving everything to the last minute (ie. previous night) which is a little dangerous for a variety of reasons.

Yes, I agree, buts its just the way it turned out.,
I intend doing a recon. of the site on Thursday night to see what we're up against and to find the escape routes out of the city should we need them.

Well, I took some trial exposures this evening.
1/100 to 1/200 sec exposures with the Baader film worked out quite well with my lens.

This is NOT encouraging at all since it translates to even longer necessary exposures for the diamond ring and totality. If you have a way to bump up your baseline exposure, do try it!

As for how long an exposure you can have at 400mm focal length without tracking, I reckon around 1.5 secs is the max. You could go 2 secs if you are willing to accept slight trailing. I came to this conclusion after some test exposures on the Moon and Jupiter this evening.

This seems about right on the basis of my work involving the rising moon against archaeological monuments.

As for the "slight trailing", NO, NO, NO or you just killed the fine detail in the corona and especially away from the immediate area of the disk.

We had some VERY serious haze today (all day) and I could not proceed with my proposed testing. Fingers crossed that I can do something tomorrow.

Today's haze also killed my planned capture of the HST transiting against the moon. What can you do but wait till the next such opportunity.

Yes, I agree, buts its just the way it turned out.,
I intend doing a recon. of the site on Thursday night to see what we're up against and to find the escape routes out of the city should we need them.

Hehehe, what this means is that you will be on the roof with me the following afternoon. That simple! :mrgreen:

Well guys,
I'm in the happy situation of been able to fall back on the exposure figures I used last time.
1/500th of a second at iso100 at full 3kx2k resolution (cropped)
gives me the following image using 4" F5 scope.
farm4.static.flickr.com/3130/2671875657_e633a601ee_o.jpg
I found that 2 seconds was the most I could do at totality before trailing but it was seriously over exposed, this time I intend to have a motor driving the scope.
Diamond ring was 1/320th of a second, and good corona shots were 1/10th of a second.

the HST transiting against the moon. What can you do but wait till the next such opportunity.

That would have been cool to see!

As for recon missions Dave.
A meet up with 'dfnsk' the Webmaster of the Novo eclipse messageboard
looks like a great idea.
His Local knowledge would be priceless.


novosibirskguide.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=260

the HST transiting against the moon. What can you do but wait till the next such opportunity.

That would have been cool to see!

Yeah, I know! It was a 1.85 sec transit right across the middle of the moon. Given the distance of the HST (1450 km) and its dimensions (13x4 meters), the apparent diameter would have been 2 arc-secs or 3 pixels using my DMK with the AP160.

Anyway, just a little patience and I will nail this baby!

As for recon missions Dave.
A meet up with 'dfnsk' the Webmaster of the Novo eclipse messageboard
looks like a great idea.
His Local knowledge would be priceless.

novosibirskguide.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=260

This is something that occurred to me as well. I remember in one of his messages where the mentioned about driving to some spot in the countryside with friends.

Dave: your figures look good to me surrounding exposure times!

Anyone got the Russian rules of the road handy. :wink:

I didn't think there were any...





Best of luck!

Today's haze also killed my planned capture of the HST transiting against the moon. What can you do but wait till the next such opportunity.

Tough luck Anto. How do you find out about such times and opportunities? With only a handful of observers ever catching the ISS passing the Moon, is the HST passing it a first?

Seanie.

Hi Seanie,

It is always frustrating when such an opportunity is lost due to the weather. I can accept a change in orbit due to an orbit boost but when the weather kills an opportunity, it is a different situation!

As for how I keep track, I use a variety of methods. One is CalSky which allows me to generate predictions of up to a week in advance and which helps raise a warning flag when something looks interesting.

I also have access to a NASA closed site for getting very precise and up-to-the-minute elements and which I use to study possible transits.

Finally, there is Rob Matson's Sky Map program which also is very good at identifying lunar and solar transits.

I consider myself fairly updated when it comes to successful transit captures and I do not recall ever seeing an HST transit against the moon. Fingers crossed my next opportunity will not be too far away. With a scheduled Shuttle mission to fix the Hubble (STS-125 in Oct/2008), this is something that will become timely and it would be really neat having such a catch.

Interesting, thanks Anto. Tell me, which of the sources you quoted is free and would be the most accurate? Can any Joe Soap access the closed NASA site?

Seanie.

Interesting, thanks Anto. Tell me, which of the sources you quoted is free and would be the most accurate?

Seanie,

They are all free (this is the best part). For example:

(1) for CalSky, see www.calsky.com/cs.cgi/Satellites/16? ... the software automatically extracts your location via your IP address and it is a good idea to check and confirm the proper coordinates for you are being used (if not, change them) since the footprint is usually just around 5 km for any (ISS) pass and it is critical that you have accurate personal coordinartes

(2) for Rob Matson's program, see web.archive.org/web/20051031212446/users.../skymap66/index.html ... this program is so good (!) that it has been taken offline due to US government pressure after 9/11

Can any Joe Soap access the closed NASA site?

Following 9/11, access to precise and timely TLE's was restricted significantly. However, it does not hurt to apply at www.space-track.org/perl/login.pl ... I am very fortunate to have an account and where I can get TLE's for overhead ISS passes which are no more than three to four hours old under a worst case scenario.

Nice one, thanks Anthony.

Seanie,

The program by Rob Matson uses ANSI characters and it seems that recent versions of Windows (ex. XP) have made a mess with this ability and which impacts the online text within Matson's program.

Please pay attention to the reference on the page I cited to the ANSI zip and which contains a utility which is temporarily loaded into HIRAM before loading the SkyMap program and which is then unloaded when one exits the program.

It is not critical that you use this fix but it will be easier on your eyes if you do implement it (regular text with ANSI codes do no mix well otherwise).

Hello!
So, my offer is still valid.. If there is anybody who don't know where to stay in Novosibirsk, where to go or if you want to see intresting places, sights of Novosibirsk - you are welcome! I will be very pleased if I could help you in anything..
And now special offer - you may offer YOUR prices for renting a flat! You will have excursions for free if you rent a flat!
I'm waiting for your PMs... Or you may email me to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Sincerely,
Alexander.

Weather forecast for Novosibirsk:
www.wunderground.com/global/stations/29634.html
weather.msn.com/tenday.aspx?wealocations=wc:RSXX0077
www.weather-forecast.com/locations/Novosibirsk/forecasts/latest

Interesting,
We'll be watching these 3 sites intensely over the coming weeks.