Activity

Astronaut Scott Kelly wrote on November 24, 2022 https://twitter.com/StationCDRKelly/status/1595925959081070592

Ukraine from space yesterday. The dark area above the Black Sea. Among many other things today I’m thankful I have electricity and heat.

Venus, Mercury and delta Scorpii (Dschubba) line up east of the Sun and are joined by a CME from the sun’s west side.

Here is an interesting website that contains cool animations and graphics and data concerning the Moon’s occultation of Mars in December and the total solar eclipse of 2024 https://www.shadowandsubstance.com/

Lunar eclipse photos from early this morning. Fortunately, the sky was still clear and the moon well placed in the Western sky. Had a nice view thru my 7 power finder scope with multiple stars and possibly Uranus in the same field of view. Photos taken during early (Starblast) and late (guide) totality. Stills from Orion 6.3 M pixel camera…[Read more]

Venus, Mercury and a pair of mini sun-grazing comets in todays (11/6/2022) SOHO C3 video! https://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/data/Theater/

Both mini comets come in from the 5 o’clock position. Venus is brilliant on the left and Mercury, almost in superior conjunction, on the right.

very nice Bob! thanks for sharing 😉

Bob, well done images of the 40 Eridani! Thanks for bringing attention to the White Dwarfs – https://rochesterskies.org/40-eridani-b/

Well Jim the wind didn’t die down and so I stayed home where I can partially block the wind with my observatory dome. Seeing conditions otherwise weren’t too bad. A bit obsessed with 40 Eridani I did go out and obtained another picture, this time with the ASI 186MC camera (shown below).

yea, my situation has changed anyway so i won’t make it. i hope the wind dies down…

So what’s everyone think?  Not as clear as I thought it was going to be.

If we don’t hear anything about Eagle Bluff, I’ll probably head to Keller.  Unless some can turn the light off at Root River?

yes, cross our fingers for Saturday Jeff!

The December Sky and Telescope mag motivated me to get out early this morning and see if I could observe and photograph “The First White Dwarf” star in 40 Eridani; the latter is a triple star with the B component a white dwarf.
In the attached photo I used the 10 in SCT and Orion 6.3 M pixel camera with a 8 second exposure. The bright component A…[Read more]

I called yesterday Eagle Bluff general number and left message (at I believe option 6) to switch off parking lights. No answer so far 🙁

Jim, Saturday may be better.  Looking at the Clear Sky Chart and hourly forecasts, they are showing Saturday as clearer than Friday.

saturday would be better for me but let me know if you decide to go tonight.
jim

Is Eagle Bluff available this weekend?  Anyone thinking of going out observing?  It looks like it may be the last good day until next year… maybe.  Friday looks pretty good.  Saturday may be starting to cloud up a bit more, but looks to be warmer.

Processing recent images of Jupiter and Saturn using a sequence of free programs including PIPP, AutoStakkert3, Registax 6. There are good tutorials online such as this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQYbtzsnQ3E

SOHO C3 image from today (10-10-2022) shows our active sun (Solar Cycle 25), Venus and stars of Virgo (Spica and Porrima (gamma Virginis).