Studying radio astronomy; Attempting to photograph quasar 3c273 with DSLR; Old dreams of fuel cells and fusion power; Wannabe Dejection?

Greetings from Palmia Observatory


Well this week I've been busy reading up on radio astronomy and just by chance reading that the brightest radio galaxy ever observed, 3c273, is also optically bright enough to be seen in just an amateur telescope.  So, this became my goal, but before going into the sad news about that attempt, and being reminded of other old dreams that did not come to pass, we should cover some of the upcoming events.

How distance to black hole mergers is determined;How fast does the eclipse go dark? How many camera pixels to a star? Using 21cm radiation to trace back to the first stars ever

Greetings from Palmia Observatory


Well this week we have some comments on how 21cm radiation is being used to search for the very first stars, but first we need to go over some other fruitful discussions with other astronomers, physicists and wannabes.  So, let's begin with

Hooray, particle tracks observed in teeny weeny cloud chamber; William Phillips speaks at CSUB 39th Nobel Laureate lecture on laser cooling; Where is the coldest place in the universe

Greetings from Palmia Observatory

Well now that we are back to reality and have left behind the cruise ship mentality, we need to pick up some loose ends that have been left unfinished, such as setting up the teeny weeny cloud chamber, which we can report some initial images of streaks caused by nuclear particles.  But first, let's

Hooray, used teeny Iphone telephoto lens to get Jupiter and moon, But will the accessory be useful?; Upcoming ISDC conference with Jeff Bezos

Greetings from Palmia Observatory

This post covers some of the new success with the teeny weeny telephoto lens accessory for the IPhone.  We overcame the issue of getting longer exposure time and shutter release delay timer so that the IPhone is not vibrating due to pushing the camera shutter button.  Before getting into that success story though we should look at one upcoming event on the calendar.

Wine tasting and Douro River cruise in Spain and Portugal; Dark skies but too cloudy for star gazing; Sampling the food, cork hats, ABC's and remembering the discoveries; Funicular physics

Greetings from Palmia Observatory

Well, we are finally back from our touring and river cruising in Spain and Portugal.  The weather was pretty cloudy and rainy so we didn't have much opportunity to take advantage of many of the very dark sky sites along the Douro River.  So rather than turning this astronomical blog into a travel blog, I will make just show a few photos and some comments about our journey and include a physics problem at the end.