Hope you're having a good time. We've been tied up with celebrations and didn't get the scope out. However, I did pick the next astronomical target to capture with the scope and did perform one light propagation calculation and measurement with
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)
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Thanksgiving greetings and life observed from within a 65 light-year radius bubble
Thanksgiving greetings from Palmia Observatory
Hope you're having a good time. We've been tied up with celebrations and didn't get the scope out. However, I did pick the next astronomical target to capture with the scope and did perform one light propagation calculation and measurement with
Hope you're having a good time. We've been tied up with celebrations and didn't get the scope out. However, I did pick the next astronomical target to capture with the scope and did perform one light propagation calculation and measurement with
Saturday, October 25, 2014
First Sunspot Photo with 8 inch Celestron and DSLR
The attached images are Photoshopped enlargements of the sunspots taken during the recent eclipse. I am a rank amateur with Photoshop, but am trying to enhance the sunspots. Viewing the sunspots thru the scope seemed to give better detail and I am trying to recover some of that.
My camera resolution is 18 megapixels and I thought I could bring out more detail, but maybe my original focus was off. Ever time I tweaked the focus knob on the scope the image jittered so much I had to wait a couple of seconds for the scope to settle down and didn't get quite the focus i was looking for.
Maybe that is why my current concentration is more on theoretical physics than experimental physics.
Until next time,
Resident Astronomer George
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| New resident astronomer observes first sunspots with 8 inch Celestron and DSLR (Source: Palmia Observatory) |
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| New resident astronomer observes first sunspots (Source: Palmia Observatory) |
My camera resolution is 18 megapixels and I thought I could bring out more detail, but maybe my original focus was off. Ever time I tweaked the focus knob on the scope the image jittered so much I had to wait a couple of seconds for the scope to settle down and didn't get quite the focus i was looking for.
Maybe that is why my current concentration is more on theoretical physics than experimental physics.
Until next time,
Resident Astronomer George
If you are interested in things astronomical or in astrophysics and cosmology
Check out this blog at www.palmiaobservatory.com
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Rushed back from AIAA Advanced Propulsion Lunch to take images of the solar eclipse
Greetings from the Palmia Observatory
Well, I had to rush back to the observatory, from the AIAA Advanced Space Propulsion lunch meeting in El Segundo, to catch some images of the solar eclipse. I was going to attend the UCI physics colloquium on neutrinos, but the eclipse
Well, I had to rush back to the observatory, from the AIAA Advanced Space Propulsion lunch meeting in El Segundo, to catch some images of the solar eclipse. I was going to attend the UCI physics colloquium on neutrinos, but the eclipse
Saturday, August 30, 2014
First Palmia Observatory Naming and Spectroscopy Post
Well, my astrophysics work is continuing and we now have a new observatory. We live in a condominium complex, called Palmia, and its hard to just go out into the parking lot in front of our house because the street lamps and house address lights are so bright. We have driven to the OCA dark site (about 25 minutes away) for the really dark site at Anza (about 2.5 hours away), but this makes observing into a much more involved process. We found that the condominium tennis courts, about 5 blocks away, provide an excellent place to set up the scope. Nobody plays tennis after about 8:30pm, so we can set up at that time. We've been using that location for several nights now, so it time to christen that location: Palmia Observatory.
Newsflash from Palmia Observatory.
Amateur science can be coupled with amateur astronomy very easily with the low cost tools that are available now. The Palmia Observatory resident astronomer, George, has acquired a 100 lines/mm diffraction grating and analysis software from www.rspec-astro.com, for just a couple of hundred dollars. The first attempt at collecting a spectrum of a star was performed last night using the bright star Arcturus. The spectrum from the diffraction grating is shown below.
The respec software generates the spectrum plot shown in the pdf document. Look at the intensity peaks. Pretty neat!
The next step is to learn how to calibrate the spectrum plot in order to convert camera pixels into wavelengths.
Until next time,
Newsflash from Palmia Observatory.
Amateur science can be coupled with amateur astronomy very easily with the low cost tools that are available now. The Palmia Observatory resident astronomer, George, has acquired a 100 lines/mm diffraction grating and analysis software from www.rspec-astro.com, for just a couple of hundred dollars. The first attempt at collecting a spectrum of a star was performed last night using the bright star Arcturus. The spectrum from the diffraction grating is shown below.
The respec software generates the spectrum plot shown in the pdf document. Look at the intensity peaks. Pretty neat!
The next step is to learn how to calibrate the spectrum plot in order to convert camera pixels into wavelengths.
Until next time,
If you are interested in things astronomical or in astrophysics and cosmology
Check out this blog at www.palmiaobservatory.com
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