Observing with Street Lights

Observing with Street Lights
Dark sky sites not always necessary to see the Milky Way (This image was taken ouside of a B&B in Julian, CA)

Saturday, January 13, 2024

Back from the Southern Hemisphere with only clouds in the night sky; Upgrading the microscope in the search for living Water Bears

 Greetings from Palmia Observatory,

Well, we are back from our cruise adventure to the Southern Hemisphere with ports of call in New Zealand and Australia with an add on adventure into the outback of Australia.  We were also lucky in travelling with old friends, OC Astronomers and Radio Hams, Marty and Bonnie.

Anyway, we are late in wishing everyone a happy new year.  So, Happy New Year everyone!  There was a lot of celebration aboard the ship, but we were tired out and missed actual new year's by about 3 hours.

Friday, December 15, 2023

Resident Astronomer tries his hand at using a microscope in lieu of a telescope to search for actual living Tardigrades

 

Greetings Physicist Wannabes from Palmia Observatory,

Last week at our Astrophysics SIG we watched a video from the series, “Life in our Universe” and we talked about how some microorganisms can survive in more extreme conditions than normally found on Earth. 

Saturday, October 21, 2023

Travelled to St. George Utah for better view of the annular solar eclipse; Stopped in Las Vegas to see the Sphere; Photographing the eclipse; What to do with the Frunk?

 Greetings from Palmia Observatory

Well, we left on our road trip to view the October 14, 2023, annular solar eclipse from our selected location in St. George, Utah.  Las Vegas is about halfway from OC, so we had to stop there for refreshments and get a view of the Sphere.

Friday, September 8, 2023

Some photos and past comments of the 2017 and 2019 total solar eclipse events; For the October 14 Annular Eclipse, while millions watch and enjoy, the electric utility reliability planners are very busy!

 Greetings from Palmia Observatory,

Well, many of us are making plans for where we will be to observe the April 2024 total solar eclipse, but the upcoming annular eclipse on October 14 is also on our planning radar.  But as astronomers we often forget about another group that is especially interested in eclipses: Electric Utilities who must plan for the loss of solar generated power at that time.

Thursday, August 24, 2023

The 1961 movie about the first rocket ship, X-15; Richard Ellis and Brian Keating discuss Cosmic Dawn; Recalling coding problems?

 Greetings from Palmia Observatory

This week we attended a viewing of the 1961 classic movie, X-15 and watched a great conversation with Richard Ellis on the latest findings leading up to the Cosmic Dawn.