Use of commercial spectrometer flops (mostly), need to do system analysis (before purchasing stuff), bright moon in the sky

Greetings from Palmia Observatory

Well the craziness of the holidays is winding down and it's time to consider some observing.  Sadly, I find the out of the normal nighttime weather so cold, and even the daytime temperatures and wind so much to interfere with solar observing, that it's hard to get up enough excitement to take the scope out.  Also Resident Astronomer Peggy and I have been so exhausted by taking Astronomer Assistant Ruby out for her hourly break from

Observatory under attack by Astronomer Assistant Ruby, Hard times with Lie Algebra, Setup using commercial spectrometer, See you at Black Star (if we surve Ruby)

Greetings from Palmia Observatory

This Saturday night at Black Star Canyon might be our next scope night if the weather cooperates.  It's not yet clear if Resident Astronomer Peggy can attend or not because we are under attack by the cleverly hidden DNA hidden inside our recently acquired Astronomer Assistant Ruby.  I mentioned last week that our friends cleverly concealed the true nature of our new assistant and now we are facing the real Ruby.  We almost need

Trying low cost commercial fiber optic spectrometer, full moon through the clouds, just arrived Astronomer Assistant Ruby, and Ryden's book on cosmology

Greetings from Palmia Observatory

This has been a busy week with mostly inside activities with just one quick photo shoot of the full moon.  One such activity was my decision, after much dithering, to get more involved with shooting stellar spectrograms.  As you might remember from last year's posts, I briefly tried this before with a Star Analyzer diffraction grating.  This grating could be installed in the telescope optical path, just like an optical filter, and the resulting diffraction pattern could be photographed.  But, I found I had a hard time getting good calibration of

Thanksgiving Holiday, Lie Algebra with Math Guru Dave, OCA general meeting about asteroseismology,

Greetings from Palmia Observatory

As we move into Thanksgiving holiday mode of structuring our time, it's been hard to schedule more time for observing.  Resident Astronomer Peggy has been busy with decorations and holiday partying preparations.  As the other resident astronomer, I have been busy completing two online courses and just finished the final exam for the Exoplanets  course and getting ready for the final exam for the climate science course and the ongoing study of Lie Algebra with

Nightfall Festival in Borrego Springs, Large Scorpian, Always remember to take the lens cap off, M31 long exposure image and Strange Light in Sky

Greetings from Palmia Observatory,

Well as you know we have been offsite at the Nightfall astronomy festival in Borrego Springs.  The location has very dark skies and is about a 2.5 hours drive outside of Orange County.   We had three good nights of observing and it was a lot of fun and I have four photos to share.

The first shot I wanted to share is of the telescope setup area where there is plenty of concrete parking lot.  The building in the background is one of the hotel buildings so you are really close if you want to stretch out to rest.  The area to the right side is another