Scattered Thoughts . . .

Sheila and I were out in the yard this morning looking for signs of bear damage.  Through our windows this morning, we noticed that a bear had gotten into our neighbor's garbage bins during the night and the garbage was strewn all over our next door neighbor's yard.  The garbage bins were across the street but all the garbage ended up in our next door neighbor's yard.   Also, as we were closing up the doors and windows before going to bed last night (so bears don't climb through our screens into the house), Sheila saw a very young fox in our yard.  So, we headed outside this morning to see if the bear had attempted to get into our trash shed and to see if there were any other signs of wildlife having visited our yard last night. While I was walking around our trash shed looking for big paw-prints or new deep gouges on our trash shed   (we do have some old gouges from bear claws) , I noticed a red-tailed hawk in a tree behind our house.  The hawk was at the top of a dead

After I finished converting my old EXOS2-GoTo tracking mount into a fully manual mount, I went outside to check on the gardens around the house.  I noticed that the moon was in the sky!  I don't remember the last time I saw the moon in the sky and I know I haven't observed the moon through any of my telescopes since last fall.  I decided to head back inside to grab one of my grab-and-go telescopes...  a small telescope on a lightweight tripod.   This particular telescope is a Skywatcher 72mm ED refractor.  It is small and lightweight but has excellent optics.  I often use this same telescope for solar astronomy.  One of these nights, if we ever have a clear night when I am feeling well enough, I hope to do some nighttime imaging with it too.   When I stepped outside with the telescope, the first thing I noticed was a bird up high in a nearby tree so I pointed the telescope at this bird....  it was a dove and the view of this bird was surprisingly crisp.  I was actually hoping t

M y previous two blog entries were about this same topic but with different images shot on the same day (earlier in the day during daylight) with the same equipment.  These few latest blog entries are about revisiting some older videos and images in an effort to understand a new software program meant for processing this type of imaging data.  This time around in this blog entry, I'll share the resulting images of some planets and our moon that Sheila and I observed that evening. In case you haven't yet read the couple of previous blog entries, these photos in this blog entry are from a short imaging session I had with Sheila back in November.  We observed the moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus.  I think we were only out there for less than a half hour but we came back into the house rather cold since it was a brisk 40 degrees or so.  That is about my limit on tolerating cold weather and, even then, I don't want to be out longer than a few minutes.  ___________________________

T he moon was shining brightly through our living room window as we headed to the bedroom so I figured I would take a quick view through that new little Orion 102mm Mak-Cassegrain telescope I evaluated recently.   Sheila was in the bathroom getting ready for bed so I had a few minutes to kill.  I went to retrieve a lightweight mount and the telescope and set it up at the window to take a quick look...  I easily found the bright moon in the sky and saw nothing but out-of-focus mush.  I again repeated what I had been saying all along about this little Mak-Cass telescope...  "what a piece of junk." This prompted me to go retrieve my Skywatcher 72mm refractor which is equally as small but with a much short focal length.  I brought that out to the living room and I was immediately treated to a stunningly sharp view of the moon.   Viewing through a window with optics is a no-no because glass will cause all sorts of problems.  Heat escaping the house through an open window is often

A fter a mostly sleepless night the night before last with some health issues that kept me in the bathroom and seriously cut into my sleep, I managed to get some sleep yesterday afternoon for about three or four hours in preparation of a clear night last night.  Clear nights around here are few and far between any time of year but especially in the November through March timeframe so I don't like to waste these rare nights, if possible.  This meant a relatively rare opportunity for viewing some objects in our solar system.   As the sky darkened to a deep dark blue, I set up a new telescope of mine that I have been evaluating as an option for beginners.  I had three eyepieces on hand;  a low power wide eyepiece, a medium power eyepiece, and a high power eyepiece.  I also had my Sony a6000 camera ready to go with a nosepiece on it so I could slide the camera into the diagonal in place of an eyepiece when I felt the view was worthy of recording.  Facing the back end of our backyard in

Due to the usual and frustratingly predictable winter overcast skies here in Waterbury, a community nestled in a valley between three ski resorts, yesterday was our only chance to capture a glimpse of the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn.  It was still three days before the actual conjunction (the point in time when the two planets appear the closest from Earth) but the weather forecast was indicating that Friday (yesterday) was our only option.  Contrary to what we've been seeing in the media and in news articles lately, this conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn is not a terribly rare occurrence.  What makes this year's conjunction a little bit special is that the apparent gap between the planets in our sky will be smaller than usual at around 1/8 of a degree in our sky.  This conjunction actually occurs every 20 years but we usually see an apparent separation between the planets in our sky of around 1/2 a degree to 1 degree.  So, the two planets will appear closer together this

My health is still quite lousy, overall, and has been this way since January.  I believe that Sheila and I both contracted this pandemic virus and, lately, I've been bouncing back and forth between fever and fever-free.  Sheila recovered relatively quickly but I'm struggling to recover.  That isn't much of a surprise, however, considering my primary health issues.   Needless to say, I've had very little energy to accomplish anything of significance.  Actually, I've been doing a lot of sleeping.  On the rare occasion when I'm feeling well enough to think clearly, one of the things I have done is revisit some old lunar images I shot from our yard.   In this case, about two years ago, I shot a series of images with the intent of stacking the images to create a super-resolution final image.  This is a post-processing technique similar to high-resolution pixel shift technology in some cameras that produces high resolution images.  It works fairly well if done cor

The guide scope and guide camera that I use with my astronomy gear is old.  Actually, by digital standards, the guide camera is considered ancient!  I've wanted to test this guide scope/camera combo again at night so I can determine if upgrading would be worth it.  I haven't been all that happy with the imaging I am getting with that camera.  Last night, we had completely overcast skies so there were absolutely no stars visible but the moon was faintly glowing through the clouds. I quickly mounted my guide scope on my tripod.  Then I attached my guide camera to the little guide scope.  Then I grabbed my Windows tablet and headed outside to the deck with everything in tow.  I pointed the guide scope at the moon and then adjusted the settings of the camera using my tablet...  and here is the resulting image... There are a few things worth noting here.   First, considering how overcast the skies were last night and how the moon was mostly obscured by those clouds, it i

After we had finished cleaning up from our concrete work yesterday and while I was making a pasta salad for dinner, we received a call from Liza saying the kids wanted to come over for dinner.  Naturally, we thought that was a good idea and told them to come on over.   Lukey helped to start a fire...  which was a little smokey at times...  Kenzie was afraid the fire department would show up and I think we all went to bed with slightly irritated eyes!  The kids made some hot dogs on the fire before dinner.  For dinner, we had bacon cheeseburgers and pasta salad. Since it was one of those days when the moon was high in the sky all afternoon, I decided to take one of the telescopes out so the kids could view the moon as night approached... Kenzie had a little difficulty correctly positioning her eye over the huge eyepiece but she eventually figured it out.  If you are too close or too much to one side of the big eyepiece, you sometimes will see nothing.  In this case, mo

As I was passing by the living room window heading to the bedroom tonight, I noticed that the sky was clear...  two nights in a row is a shocking surprise...  and the full Snow Moon was again shining brightly so I grabbed my camera and shot a couple of quick photos out the living room window.  This supermoon is still appearing a bit larger than normal even though it was higher in the sky tonight than it was the previous night when I noticed it shining in our living room window.   As much as I'm dying to get out there with a telescope or two, it is still far too frigid out there for me.  I'll wait for the temperatures to get into the 40s!  Right now, we're closer to -40 than we are 40 degrees.  To set up the telescope and mount, I need about 15 minutes.  Then I need another 15 minutes or so to properly level and align the telescope with the celestial north pole.  By the time I'm done doing that, I'd be freezing and dying to get back indoors so it doesn't make a

Our moon is currently making its way around us on the closest path to Earth for 2019...  at around 221,700 miles from Earth.  At its farthest point from us, it is 253,000 miles.  So, because it is closer to us, our February "Snow Moon" also appears slightly larger than usual...  especially as it just comes up over the horizon.   We haven't seen much sky in recent months so it was a surprise to see the big, bright moon as it rose last night and bathed our snowy landscape with soft white light.  This light was so bright it was casting shadows in our living room.  My first thought was to bring a telescope outside to get a closer look at the moon.  After quickly glancing at the thermometer, I instead opted for grabbing a camera and shooting a few shots through our living room window.  It was far too cold out there for me!   The moon had just risen above the ridge of the Worcester Range opposite our living room window but was still behind the leafless trees.  I though

I haven't written anything here in quite some time. Well...  quite some time for me. Unfortunately, I'm still struggling with getting my health back to a stable place and I've been feeling so miserable that finding the right words and staying focused on what I am attempting to write is difficult. Staying on topic and staying focused on any task is almost impossible but I'm also having difficulty writing in a positive way so I've actually been avoiding writing here. You'll see what I mean as you continue reading this blog entry...  We went up to Stowe to meet up with some friends almost three weeks ago... I can't believe that was almost three weeks ago. It seems like last weekend! We had a great time and it was really  nice getting out of the house for a change but I felt quite lousy within an hour of being out. My health only worsened over the next few hours during dinner... pain, nausea and overwhelming fatigue... and now, even though I thought I was fin

The upgraded Celestron 70mm telescope.           I've already written a few times about rebuilding this particular little telescope but I added another part recently so it is worth writing about again.  As purchased, this scope was a hunk of junk. Celestron should be embarrassed by all their sub-$400 telescope packages because they are all worthless as sold. I suspect a lot of people end up getting turned off to astronomy as a result of being disappointed by purchasing a lousy, frustrating telescope. Only the very determined will continue this hobby after becoming frustrated beyond belief. I bought a Celestron 114EQ for our son a number of years ago. We quickly realized that this particular scope was not ideal for a beginner and we never got any decent views out of it so, the next Christmas, I purchased a simpler Celestron 70AZ. This telescope wasn't much better than the 114EQ but I felt it had potential for various reasons not worth explaining here.  This telescope

Last night, I quickly assembled my good telescope on the deck so Sheila and I could get some quick views of the moon and Jupiter. Sheila hasn't had an opportunity to view anything at all through my good and bigger telescope until now so last night was a first for her. Her only reference to a quality telescope was her few views through the little cheap telescope I rebuilt in recent weeks.  First, we checked out the moon... we started by observing the entire moon in the field of view... this elicited the first of many WOW's  from Sheila. Compared to the views she has seen before through the small rebuilt telescope, this better telescope provides stunningly crisp and bright views. The views of the moon are so bright, in fact, that we need to use a filter to cut the light down to only 13%. Then we moved to more powerful combinations of eyepieces and barlows. She got to see very closeup views of various craters as well as closeup views of the Montes Apenninus mountain range and