Archives for the 'Astronomy' Category
First Light: Celestron NexStar 8 SE
Published on 15 Jun 2008 at 9:08 pm.
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The clouds finally lifted, and last week I got the check out my new NexStar. After setting up the red dot finder, I was ready to go.
Having already entered my latitude and longitude info into the scope’s computer during one of the cloudy nights, alignment was very easy. From my backyard I could see the […]
Read ‘First Light: Celestron NexStar 8 SE’
Curse of the New Scope
Published on 9 Jun 2008 at 8:56 am.
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I’ve got a brandy-new scope, a Celestron NexStar 8 SE… so of course it has been raining or overcast every night since I bought it last week.
The good news is that I got the scope-to-Starry Night interface working, so once the scope is aligned I can use Starry Night to slew it. I’m really excited […]
Lucky Shot
Published on 9 Mar 2008 at 7:13 am.
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Took this from our balcony in Phoenix last week. You can see the moon, Jupiter (top left), Venus and Mercury (bottom right), and Earth. That’s a personal best for most heavenly bodies in one shot!
Click the image for full-size version at flickr.
Eclipse Pics
Published on 27 Feb 2008 at 7:38 pm.
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Here’s a couple pictures I took during last week’s total lunar eclipse.
I’m not a real photographer so I sort of didn’t know what I was doing with my camera settings. There’s no filters on any of these, just varying exposure times.
Here it is starting:
Here’s one very near totality. You can also see Saturn (bottom left) […]
Mars Pic
Published on 22 Dec 2007 at 6:41 pm.
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Mars is on its closest approach for the next 9 years, so I checked it out a few nights ago. They aren’t kidding when they call it the most disappointing object in amateur astronomy. I hoped that computer enhancement would help out a bit, but not much.
As always, gear was an Orion XT8i scope and […]
More Moon Pix
Published on 4 Apr 2007 at 12:38 pm.
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Filed under Astronomy, Art.
Here are two more moon pictures taken during a very brief moment last week when it was both clear and not too cold.
Each picture is actually a composite of 2 photos, which themselves were made by averaging several hundred frames of video. Some time I’d like to do a composite of the enitre moon. I […]
Mercury Transit 2006
Published on 3 Nov 2006 at 8:30 am.
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Next Wednesday afternoon, Mercury is going to cross in front of the sun.
If you’ve got a scope, get yourself a solar filter and check it out!
If not (or if it’s cloudy), you can watch it on the SOHO website.
I’ve got a filter for my XT8i on the way, and I hope to be able to […]
Stardust@Home
Published on 12 Oct 2006 at 12:40 pm.
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I’ve been participating in the Stardust@Home project. It’s in the same spirit as the SETI@Home project, except you’re actually doing something instead of just donating computer cycles.
The Stardust spacecraft flew near comet Wild2 in January 2004. Returning to Earth in 2006, it brought back particle samples from the comet’s coma.
The Stardust@Home project has scanned the […]
Atlantis Launch Today
Published on 8 Sep 2006 at 6:38 am.
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The shuttle Atlantis will (hopefully) launch this morning around 11:41 AM EST. The schedule for this mission, STS115, has been moved around a lot but it’s finally getting off the ground.
You can read the mission overview on the STS115 page. NASA says:
NASA’s ready to get back to building the International Space Station, which means the […]
How Planets Are Named
Published on 7 Sep 2006 at 8:42 am.
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The Planetary Society has a brief article by a member of the IAU Nomenclature Committee about the naming process for planets, planetary features and so on.
For example:
We maintain a database of potential names for planetary features, which must all fit within a theme for that body. For example, eruptive centers on Io are named after […]