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)

Thursday, August 24, 2023

The 1961 movie about the first rocket ship, X-15; Richard Ellis and Brian Keating discuss Cosmic Dawn; Recalling coding problems?

 Greetings from Palmia Observatory

This week we attended a viewing of the 1961 classic movie, X-15 and watched a great conversation with Richard Ellis on the latest findings leading up to the Cosmic Dawn.

Saturday, July 22, 2023

Didn't see Starlinks but one OCA saw rocket launch; What is your ecological footprint? Some comments about a magnetotail and water on the moon from NESF conference; The end of the particle era?

 Greetings from Palmia Observatory

Well, we didn't have much luck seeing the latest prediction for Starlink String of Pearls, but some lucky observers caught a distant rocket launch.  More about that and comments about our ecological footprint and water ice on the moon discussion at National Exploration Science Forum 2023.

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Captured Starlinks with flimsy tripod camera; Upcoming Annular Eclipse; Activity at SpaceX Starbase; Oh-oh Atomic Size Black Holes; LIGO beginning Q4 Observations; It's hot but no need to worry!

 Greetings from Palmia Observatory

Well we saw some Starlink string of pearls this week and planned for the upcoming annular eclipse and worried about atomic sized black holes but enjoyed some LIGO news benefits of the hot weather,

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.