Monday, October 18, 2010

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Comet 103P/Hartley

Observed from Kitt Peak last night with the 11" Newtonian. I had hoped to get considerable exposure on comet 103p/Hartley, but was having declination backlash issues, so gave up after a while. This is a single 3m exposure with Canon XSi, cropped to about .5 degree square. In the upper left corner galaxy UGC 12381 is visible. North is approximately up. The comet was VERY extended, Melinda had trouble seeing it visually in the 11" until I cranked up the power a little. Oh well, it was fun tracking it down!

Monday, June 21, 2010

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Testing photo work


The powers that be have decided to change the format of the posting editor.  This, of course, is terribly frustrating to me.  In particular, I am having trouble loading and positioning pictures.  I can't help but think that I need to practice this, and find the easiest way to do it.  Certainly, they would not have made changes that would make it less user friendly, would they?  I have reason to believe that this is Omega Centauri.  I took this picture, and it is one of my favorites!









Ah, the Pleides!  The seven sisters, Subaru, etc, etc, etc.  It's a great open star cluster, and the first I remember seeing with a pair of generic binocs!






Bella Luna!  What a great line from "Moonstruck"!

















One of Dean's comet pictures....McNaught perhaps?  It's beautiful, no matter what name it goes by.  I'm starting to get the idea of how this picture drop in works, though I'm still unsure of it.  Nothing worse than writing a Nobel worthy entry (lol!) and finding out that the pictures aren't going where you intended them to go!  No wonder I have gray hair.  Maybe Blogspot should pay for my trips to GadAbout to have same hair colored?




Of course, the scariest part of trying to figure this stuff out is that Dean and I will be giving a 'lecture' at the next TAAA meeting - teaching people how to build and maintain a blog.  It should be entertaining at the very least!









This pic shows a few of the Aurigids, the uncommon meteor shower that Dean did some pictures of last year. 



Hey, wait a minute!  That's me at my first GCSP!  Sitting rim side, Dean did a movie of this!










Monday, May 3, 2010

New template trial

I'm always looking for new ways to jazz up the appearance of our blogs. I've seen so many creative backgrounds on other blogs, and decided it's time to give it a go! This may change on a frequent (or somewhat frequent) basis - until I find a look that I'm happy with. Any feedback, in the form of comments, is always appreciated!

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Grand Canyon Phantom

Photo taken as part of a sequence in June '07 at the grand Canyon Star Party. Since the school mascot for the public school there (for the kids of Park employees) are the Phantoms, I've named this creature the Grand Canyon Phantom. In reality, I think it was a picture of Dennis Young at his star charts, but I can't explain the Yeti-like appearance under the dark Canyon skies...