A cold, frustrating night in April…

‘Twas a cold night in April, yet I thought I’d finally give my new setup a try at the cemetery. I added a guide camera and Raspberry Pi micro-controller (iAstroHub) in the past couple of months, and made other incremental changes. And after spending a some time on my back deck trying to align through […]

March, 2018

March madness is all the rage. To me, that means everyone’s following the follies of over-paid athletes running around like a bunch of neanderthals! Sorry and I know I’m the outlier. But I’d rather be playing with my telescope! Meanwhile, it’s been a long winter of cloudy nights and freezing temperatures. You may recall that […]

October

I took some more images on October 2nd, with the moon nearly full and so less-than-dark skies. Using the Celestron wedge I was able to get 2-minute exposures. The wedge still offers no guarantee that the tracking will be perfect nor be free from other inaccuracies. But I did get some decent images and the […]

The Wooden Wedge

We had a terrific stretch of great viewing conditions in September 2017. Meanwhile, I’ve authored an astronomy article for Northern Home, Garden, & Leisure magazine. It’s a publication targeted to residents of neighboring Clinton county, NY. The September issue can be seen on-line here. The Wooden Wedge I’ve been experimenting with a home-made equatorial wedge, […]

August 21, 2017 – The Solar Eclipse!

Right to the photos… Time lapse movie taken in Franklin, NC. on the day of the eclipse. The movie is made from mixed exposures. Those before and after totality are 1/320th seconds with the solar filter in place, while shots taken during totality they were 1/80th of a second with the solar filter […]

Early July

Mother nature continues to tease us with somewhat nicer summer weather but still mostly unstable air. This leads to sunny days with muggy afternoon thunderstorms and unpredictable nightly viewing conditions. So far July hasn’t fared much better than May or June. Yuck! We did get a few decent nights with tantalizing beautiful views of Saturn […]

June 24-25, 2017

Oh my gosh, I’d been waiting for a confluence of darkness, transparent air, and a break in my schedule. And a Saturday night as well so I could stay out late! Tonight turned out to be it after a rough start. I set out after returning from an evening movie at 10:30 – about early […]

June 16, 2017

Conditions had finally improved just around dusk and after another gloomy day, so I decided on a whim to head for the cemetery. I’ve been keeping my telescope equipment ready for just such an impromptu situation. I totally missed a great night on June 16. Good conditions were predicted but I noticed high clouds streaming […]

May

Weather patterns come and go, so let’s hope June to May says – just blow! Cloudy nights and dreary days for most of the month, so not much new to report. I bought a f6.3 focal reducer and look forward to trying it out if conditions ever improve. This reduces the magnification of the telescope, […]

April 18, 2017

A beautiful dark moonless night. The temperature started at about 4.4° C. Kevin and I were out there for less than two hours. Kevin and Edward setup their new CPC-925 scope. First light!. I left my my CPC-800 and MacBook Pro to collect the shots composing this M51 image. Whirlpool galaxy, M51. It is composed […]