Scattered Thoughts . . .

I finished post-processing the two remaining sets of images from my first telescope observations with my new telescope. For a "first light" observation session with a new telescope... and never having done any astrophotography previously... these images turned out quite well! These two resulting images (each at a super-resolution of 96 megapixels) provide a much closer look at Montes Apenninus... a lunar mountain range named after the Apennine Mountains in Italy.  This rugged lunar mountain range towers to almost 18,000 feet in height. The total length of the mountain range is approximately 370 miles. I point this out because most people assume that the moon is relatively level and dotted with craters simply by its appearance from Earth. The reality is that the moon has a mostly hilly, rolling landscape and, obviously, some areas consist of towering mountain ranges as well. This particular rugged and towering mountain range ends at the crater Eratosthenes... Just beyon

My health has been rather lousy lately so today is another "down day" of inactivity while my health recovers.  I've been rather frustrated and anxious lately about accomplishing nothing around the house to the point that my doctors are a bit concerned because they feel that I am having some heart issues. I'm convinced it is just frustration and a bit of anxiety causing these relatively minor heart issues. Unfortunately, the more I have to sit around recovering, the more frustrated and anxious I get. There is a lot I want to do and accomplish but my health is refusing to cooperate. And, to be honest, we've been spending far too much time at the hospital and medical appointments. I'm frustrated. So, as I sit here again while my health recovers, I've decided to revisit the moon images from the other night.  I shot this series of images in two formats... a compressed jpeg format for simplicity and a RAW format for more detail. I always shoot both jpegs a

I spent a very short while observing Jupiter and four of its moons tonight. I had intended to stay up late to do some serious observing with my good telescope as well as do some astrophotography. Unfortunately, I was completely exhausted before dinnertime (and that was after a three hour nap) so I decided to make it a very short night and only view through our little telescope.  The small telescope is far easier to set up... it is far lighter... and, since I can't really do any astrophotography with this small scope, it is far less complicated with far fewer parts. I was able to fill my pockets with a few eyepieces and just grab the telescope already on its mount and head out to the backyard. It is very much a grab-and-go telescope so it is far easier to use at the last moment. The viewing was surprisingly good tonight. I was able to easily see four of Jupiter's moons and the bands on Jupiter were clearly visible. My biggest complaint was that the focuser on this small tele

This evening, I was sorting through all the photos I shot through my new telescope the other night and came across a few series of images that might be worth processing. So, below is another photo from that "first light" observing session. Unfortunately, most of the photos I shot the other night were very underexposed so some detail and crispness has been lost due to that mistake. In this particular series of photos, the images were all grossly underexposed but I thought I might be able to salvage something out of them so I loaded the series of photos into Photoshop as a stack of layers. Just like the two other photos I shared the other night, the final image is a 96 megapixel image after processing it. I started with seven images and stacked them... adjusted levels... did some noise reduction because I had to lift the levels a bit too far after starting with gross underexposure... some selective sharpening... I removed some chromatic abberations along the top edge of the

Sony a6000 camera So, after writing about my "first light" experience last night, I realized that I haven't really written anything about this telescope or even the camera I used. Let me start by saying that both of these pieces of equipment are considered "entry-level"... the telescope is an entry-level telescope for just getting started in astrophotography... and the camera is an entry-level, all purpose mirrorless interchangeable lens camera.  Let's start with the camera since that is what actually captures the imaging. It is a Sony a6000 camera body... quite small and almost pocketable... but works great for action photos of the grandchildren as well as wildlife photography. This is also the camera I bring to the hospital because its shutter is quieter than my better camera and because it is a bit smaller than my better camera. This is an old camera by digital standards but it far surpasses entry level cameras produced today by all other manufact

It is always a memorable event when you set up a new telescope outside and peer through the eyepiece to see the first light coming through the scope... tonight was one such night for me! When we arrived back home from the hospital tonight after another visit to Miss Ellie in the PICU, I immediately started setting up my new telescope in our driveway. Well... truth be told, it is about a month old now but I hadn't had a chance to observe the night sky before tonight. Tonight would be first light through this telescope.  Setup required about eight trips in and out of the house. I need to find a way to consolidate all the little odds and ends to make this task a bit easier and faster. Then I had to set up the scope... level it... align it with Polaris... then do an additional alignment on one to three additional stars. This went fairly well but I plan to do a bit more practicing on this because my alignment was off a little bit. Plus, I couldn't figure out how to slew using th

Last night, we were invited to Lukey and Kenzie's Spring Concert. It was a short but sweet program in the always-too-hot and always-too-dark gym. It's obvious from the photos that the kids really seemed to enjoy themselves and I have to say that they put on a great show! This is always a very dark gym so I've always encountered some minor difficulties with shooting photos and last night was no exception. Last night I was encountering intermittent autofocus problems in the terrible low light so I had to resort to my skills at manual focusing. Fortunately, when I first started in photography, manual focus was the only way to focus so I do have experience with this. Unfortunately, I've been spoiled by years of autofocus so I'm a bit out of practice. Still, I managed to get some nice crisp photos.  The other difficulty I had in shooting photos last night is that Miss Mackenzie has recently been moving into a phase of shying away from Papa's camera. Even last nig

I have a library of notebooks scattered throughout the house but, mostly, on a bookshelf in our bedroom. I'm always carrying one of these notebooks so I can jot down ideas and to sketch these ideas. These notebooks are filled with sketches, lists and sometimes inane musings. Since my illness developed about 18 years ago, my mind can be a bit scattered so I found that a notebook was my friend when it comes to organizing my thoughts and remembering these thoughts. I started having difficulty remembering things and, cognitively, I was struggling with a lot of small projects. My notebooks were and have been a powerful tool in helping me accomplish a lot of projects in recent years. Truth be told, I've always kept notebooks filled with my sketches and ideas. I have notebooks from decades ago filled with sketches and notes of home improvement projects and jobs, boats, airplanes, aerospace concepts, and homes I've designed and built. Back then, these notebooks were just a p

I really enjoy astronomy and viewing the night sky but, damn, I live in Waterbury.  Most of the state could be clear and sunny but if you drive down in between Stowe, Sugarbush and Bolton Resorts... down into Waterbury... we are almost always covered in clouds and, usually, there is some sort of precipitation falling from those clouds. This description of Waterbury reminds me of Harry Connick Jr's "Bluesville" in The Happy Elf.  The clear skies are rather brief. I honestly don't think that Seattle has anything on Waterbury as far as overcast and wet days go.  I've lived here for about 23 years now and my first few years made it obvious that Waterbury was aptly named 'Water'bury for a reason. I keep saying that I'm going to track and record climate conditions daily in Waterbury for a solid year just to see how it differs from the rest of Vermont and, especially, how it compares to Seattle. Naturally, I haven't done it yet. Perhaps I've been

The little bit I was awake today, I spent in Simulation Sessions learning how to use my telescope autoguider. Both Sheila and I have been exhausted for months so most of our free time seems to be spent sleeping but I managed to spend some time doing some simulations within the software for this telescope autoguider.  I'm making some headway with the software package... PHD2... which, apparently, stands for 'Push Here Dummy'. Today I managed to get through about a dozen simulations... most were effective simulations, some simulations were not so effective. Tomorrow, I hope to get through a few tutorials as well as more simulations.  Although I was in simulations today, I did assemble everything in the living room... cables running from cameras to computer and to the telescope mount. Things are becoming clearer and clearer in my mind but I will admit that I don't fully understand every aspect of this software package just yet so, when I do run into problems, I find my