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)

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Quantum gravity lecture; Lessons learned trying out the piggyback camera; Exoplanet transit light curve spectra analysis; Thermal and non-thermal radio emission sources; Happy Birthday Kendra (and me)

Greetings from Palmia Observatory


This week's CSULB physics colloquium was a presentation on supergravity by Professor Zvi Bern, UCLA.  Now I had tried to read some of his papers on the archive and found the topic so far beyond my current understanding that I was thinking of not attending the colloquium, but Math Whiz Dave convinced me that Bern would tailor his presentation for his audience of physics students.  So, I gave in and attended the colloquium and it turned out to be much more informative than I had imagined.

Sunday, November 26, 2017

Installing piggyback camera adapter on telescope; Feedback from Julian visit; Black hole constraints on galaxy size video; New Kip Thorne textbook editions; New books by Joel Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams

Greetings from Palmia Observatory


We have discussed taking long exposure images of dim extended objects during previous blog posts using non-tracking mounts.  This time we want to describe the addition of a piggyback adapter to mount a wide-angle camera on the tracking telescope.  This post will also describe some email feedback from our Julian visit and review some new books covering physics, gravitation and philosophy of science.

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Sand flow, not water flow on Mars; ALMA observatory and radio astronomy and galaxy growth; RIP, Don; Southern Illinois, cold and mosquitoes and Milky Way images

Greetings from Palmia Observatory

Well this week we have been packing our bags to travel to southern Illinois where Resident Astronomer Peggy's brother, Don, passed away a couple of months ago while we were on our Iceland cruise.  More about that shortly, but first let's check out the latest astronomy news.

Sunday, November 12, 2017

Surface Brightness estimation for Milky Way using Vega star for DSLR image and lens comparison; Spaceweatherwoman; OCA Star Party at Bob Swenson Field

Greetings from Palmia Observatory

Well the clouds keep coming in and creating not that great of nighttime observing opportunities, but we were able to learn about space weather at the OCA general meeting and even performed some dark sky surface brightness measurements and calculations and made it to the new OCA star party location.  So, first,

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Upcoming OCA and other events; Astronomer Assistants get stressed out; Cloudy skies; Cosmic string observed? Starlight deflection near the sun; Muons find new void in Great Pyramid

Greetings from Palmia Observatory

Well after coming back from Julian, CA and being clouded out both nights, we are getting anxious for some good nighttime observing.  But again the clouds are not cooperating here either and when we got back to the observatory, we were faced with some complaints from the observatory staff, but before getting into that, we should check the schedule for the coming weeks.

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

More on neutron star mergers; Radioactive and other decay; Hoped for dark skies in Julian, but had to settle for Dark Star Cellars consolation wine; Lens exposure-tradeoffs; Toured Curiosity Peak Observatory; New books;

Greetings from Palmia Observatory

This has been a very busy week with a lot of topics coming together just at this time, especially with the trip planned for Julian, CA, in order to get in some dark sky observing.  We have some follow up information on the recently observed neutron star merger and discussion regarding the recent physics colloquium and upcoming conferences and camera focal length and exposure timing tradeoffs.  First, before getting to the disappointing clouded out observing session in Julian,