Allsky1 back up and running
The allsky1 camera system went back into operation on Monday 2017 March 20th, after almost a month of down time. We had been running the camera system bare, naked to…
Starting Seeds
It is time to start seeds.. even with frozen ground and a foot of snow. This is our repurposed incubator seed chamber… an old box built to hold lead acid…
Spring is coming, winter is going
Whilst waiting for aurora in the north, Kim took an image to the south last night. This is with our *old* Canon EOS Rebel (300D) 18mm f3.5, 30 sec exposure…
LED strip lighting
We’ve tried various kitchen undercounter lighting systems in the past… first were fluorescent, the compact fluroscent.. both took too long to turn on, to come up to full brightness, and…
Science Fiction
Wow. It’s been over a year since the last post on Science Fiction. I wonder why that is? Too busy perhaps? This past year saw a lot of reading. I…
Gardening Prep in March
It is the time of year to consider the frozen veg gardens and what needs to be done before the upcoming spring melts and turns them into mush for a…
Jupiter 20170227
These images took a little longer to process, even though there were only 4 good imaging runs, because of another human error. I have one laptop where I do my…
Jupiter 20170218
Another imaging run of Jupiter under poor seeing and poor transparency, even with Jupiter near transit. Altitude was only 37 degrees with an apparent diameter of 41 arcseconds. Transparency got…
Saturn 20170218
The is the first imaging run of the season for Saturn, which is still low on the SE horizon over the Kingston lightdome from our location. These were done on…
Jupiter 20170217
It was indeed clear this morning, just as “Clear Outside” predicted.. a little colder than predicted however… -15C this time. The telescope handbox stays in the warm house before going…
Linux kernel 4.9.x stable
How a major version can make a difference! This is from last November: Over a month now of seeing almost daily lockups and kernel panics and crashes of the 4.8.x…
Jupiter 20170214
It is amazing how just a few minutes can make all the difference in the world. I was awake, looked outside to clear skies and within 10 minutes went out,…
RASC Kingston Centre met
The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada – Kingston Centre (RASC-KC) (Kingston Astronomy Club) met last night (Thursday 2017 February 09) at Ellis Hall Room 324 on Queen’s University campus. 19…
Jupiter 20170202
Surprisingly clear skies this morning.. was not planning on that. Bundled up to -14C and went to open the observatory and remembered that the last session had the alignment buggered…
Jupiter 20170131
brr.. even a little colder this morn… -17C but no wind at all. The roof opened up fine and it looked pretty clear. The forecast was supposed to be 60%…