Great Balls of ... Stars

The skies unexpectedly (for me, anyway) cleared last night, but late enough that I didn't want to pack everything in the car and drive to the clubs "dark" site. Recently, I had picked up a used Astronomik CLS light pollution filter from someone at Cloud… more »
Posted Under Astronomy on 04.17.2010

Buzzz Buzzzz Buzzzzzzz...

Up next from last Friday is Messier 44, the Beehive Cluster. An open cluster of stars that lies 5-600 light years away and is about 600 million years old.This cluster caught my eye as I was gazing up at Mars on night from Sugar Grove. It was a nake… more »
Posted Under Astronomy on 04.13.2010

Adieu, Orion, Take 2

I fiddled with last week's M-42 a bit more and cropped it a little closer. Although it's a bit noisier, I was able to coax out some more detail. Results below: more »
Tags: astronomy, astrophotography, m-42, messier 42, xsi Posted Under Astronomy, Pretty Pictures, Photography, Astrophotography on 04.13.2010

Adieu for another year, Orion

I don't like the cold. Unfortunately, one of the showpiece nebulae in the northern hemisphere, Messier 42, also known as the The Great Orion Nebula, is pretty much a winter denizen. Sometimes, we get a nice day early in the year that allows comfortable… more »
Tags: astronomy, astrophotography, m-42, messier 42, xsi Posted Under Astronomy, Pretty Pictures, Photography, Astrophotography on 04.12.2010

Mercury ... Setting?

[video:youtube:_hpJQXnnIto]More sunset time-lapse video from Sugar Grove. There haven't been too many really interesting sunsets, so I let this one go a little longer and ended up catching Venus and Mercury setting. Unfortunately, the video loses so… more »
Tags: photography, time lapse Posted Under Astronomy, Pretty Pictures, Photography, Astrophotography, Nature on 04.8.2010

So much for any remaining semblence of manliness

I get the wits scared out of me by an irate owl more »
Tags: astronomy, humor, observing, wtf Posted Under Astronomy, WTF, Humor on 04.6.2010

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em

Instead of sitting around complaining about the clouds, I finally just went with the flow... more »
Tags: photography, time lapse Posted Under Photography, Nature on 04.3.2010