Delta II Rocket Spotted from Orange County

I’ve always wanted to see the shuttle lift off in Florida, but that will probably never happen.  So this year I’ve been trying to spot a rocket launch here in California.
As you may know Vandenberg AFB is home to NASA’s west coast launch pad. And according to Brian Webb’s website www.spacearchive.info we should be able [...]

Will Mars Appear as Big as The Full Moon?!!!

“Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye.”
That direct quote is from an email forwarded to me today. The sender was asking me if it was true.  I noticed in the email that it was also sent to about two dozen other people. These were all mostly business associates, so [...]

June 21, 2009 – 7 Planets and the Moon!!!

Wow, if you are out for the new moon in June, you are in for a treat on the morning of June 21, 2009. At 4:00 a.m. you will be able to see a sliver of the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Uranus, Jupiter, and Neptune.
That’s 6 Planets, and if you look straight down at that [...]

Afton Canyon Campground

Camping at Afton Canyon Campground was great (April 26, 2009). It’s about 30 miles northeast of Barstow right off the 15 freeway.  It was super easy to find and get to. You pretty much take one turn off of the 15 and drive about 15 minutes and run right into the campground.
Afton has been called California’s [...]

Astro Trip – April 24-26 2009

For those that may be interested there is an asto trip planned for this weekend (April 24-26 2009).  Right now it looks like we are going to the Afton Campground near Barstow.
Yes it may be super windy, but we will hope for the best as we usually do.  At worst we can work on videos [...]

Casper Park Outreach April 18, 2009

M57 Ring Nebula

Saturday night we did an outreach for a couple of Girl Scout troops at Caspers Park in Orange County, CA. The girls were excited to view, but we had to explain it needed to get dark before we could show them anything exciting. Most volunteers were still setting up when lines began to form in [...]

April 2009 Cloudy Nights Challenge

Each month there is a contest for the best image of a bright object and dark sky object (DSO) on the Cloudy Nights Forum. You post your image (according to the rules) and the images get voted on.
This is a good resource to see what others are photographing and how there processing comes out. And [...]

April 22, 2009 – Lyrid Meteor Shower

On April 22, 2009 the Lyrid Meteor Shower will be at it’s best. The radiant (point where the meteors seem to come from will be between the constalations Hercules and Lyra.
Expect to see 10-20 meteors per hour in darker skies. To best view the show just look straight up while reclining in a chair. Typically [...]

Finderscope turned Guidescope

Last weekend I went out to do some imaging and was having problems with my guidescope.
I used a super long 60mm Tasco with a webcam mounted to it. It worked okay, but it wasn’t working so great with the clouds, and it did not help that I was imaging near the zenith. That meant that the [...]

RAS A Success

Although somewhat frustrating at times, I did manage to get a couple of decent images.
Here are a couple that I am pretty close to done. More to come in the next few days.
 

Leo Trio 
(20 X 5 minutes)
 
 
 
 
 

 M51
 (30 X 5 minutes)
 
 
 
 

M13 (1 X 3 minute)

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