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, June 28, 2023

Some Preliminary Comments from the first days of PASCOS 2023 Conference at UC Irvine; Using my ChatGPT Study Buddy; New Physics from Gravitational Waves?

 Greetings from Palmia Observatory

Well it is finally time for PASCOS 2023, June 26-30, held at UC Irvine this year.  PASCOS has international speakers in three main areas of study: Particle Physics, String Theory and Cosmology.

Sunday, June 11, 2023

First use of Rspec Software for Spectral Analysis; Still need to get a good Type A star spectra to calibrate camera pixels to wavelength

 Greetings from Palmia Observatory

This blog post covers the first four images to be processed by Rspec software in a first attempt to calibrate the observed SA-100 spectra camera image and convert the pixels to wavelengths.

Saturday, June 10, 2023

Spectroscopy is a fundamental tool to study the universe; Red Shift; Lyman Forests; Stellar Classification, Type and Color; Balmer lines of Hydrogen; Diffraction Gratings and Measurements

 Greetings from Palmia Observatory

This week we provide a technical discussion of spectroscopy as one of the fundamental tools of astrophysics and then review how amateurs can use modern diffraction gratings to make wavelength measurements of light from celestial objects.