Mars 2020 Oct 17
This is one of only two imaging runs of Mars on Friday evening. Another long day and a short night… not enough sleep hours in a day After completing the…
Jupiter double shadow transit 2020oct17
Shadow transits of Moons of Jupiter on Jupiter are relatively common. Double shadow transits are somewhat less common. Seen here is the moon Io off to the right with two…
Astronomy image processing
The current desktop computer that processes all of our astronomy images is nine years old. It’s specs are: Intelcore 2 Duo E7400 @ 2.8GHz, 4GB DDR2, 120GB SSD, DVD, Win10Pro64bit,…
Mars 2020 Oct 10 and 11
There were great plans afoot to image the planets this long weekend: Friday Saturday and Sunday evenings. Friday evening, the observatory was opened, the scope cooled down, and were just…
How much does the roof weigh?
The original metal roof of the SCGO observatory has blown off twice in very high winds, once by the remnants of a hurricane and the other by a blizzard. It…
Signature Flower Bed project 2020
And every year we try to create or renovate a flower garden bed around the property. This year we decided to enhance the back yard with this 100′ long berm.…
Fall garden prep
Starting to think about prepping your gardens for a fall planting? Can’t find compost anywhere? When you need it the most it is hardest to find. The local Glenburnie store…
Mars 2020sept25
Finally! After two years since the last opposition of Mars, I had a great night of imaging it. I had previously done a few back in June but Mars was…
Jupiter 2020sept18
After building a new hartman mask, a new dew shield, a new tripod prop, I did a two star alignment on Arcturus and Altair then went to Jupiter as it…
Jupiter 2020 Sept 23
1st quarter moon was maybe 35 degrees away from Jupiter, the southern half of the sky was lit up by the moon with high haze. Pointing the mount, big failure…
Garlic prep
This years 2020 garlic harvest was better than average. We harvested across a few weeks, as it came ready, and finished in early August. After drying in the leanto for…
Jupiter 2020sept20
Another night of imaging with the Meade 102mm SC on the Meade LXD55 equatorial mount in the Serenity Observatory. Started with realigning by hand the OTA on the dovetail, as…
SCGO Headlamp Review
Headlamps are a wonderful invention. From harvesting veg after sunset to working in the dark with astronomy. One requires white light and the other requires red light. White light makes…
Jupiter 2020sept11
Friday evening was the first nice clear skies in over a week. So we were out observing and imaging. by 9pm the temp had dropped to 6.6C, below the predicted…
Observatory Power
Some questions came up locally about power, quality of power and their affect on astronomy equipment. Have you considered a whole house surge protector on your main panel? I think…