Mars Neptune Conjunction
A nice telescopic planetary conjunction coming up in a couple of weeks… Mars and Neptune on the evening of Thursday 2018 Dec 06. Mars will set around 23:00 EST in…
Astronomy? It’s been a *month* !
Fall is usually the ideal time to go out back and observe and image the sky. Cooler temperatures, and most importantly, no bugs (mosquitos, black flies, deer flies, horse flies…
serenity Imaging session
After my last great prediction for clear skies and planning an imaging session earlier in the week… and then having it totally cloud over hours earlier than predicted… I decided…
Serenity unfolds
This is a 45 second video of the SCGO Serenity Observatory opening up for the evening. This is a 4’x4′ imaging platform with offset roof and offset doors (to cover…
Dew Heaters
After a dewy FallNStars star party weekend it was time to go back and start working on making work all of the various dew heating bits and pieces we have…
Got Cloud?
It’s been a week since our last astronomical imaging session. Perhaps this satellite image of CLOUD helps to explain why. That and the high humidity leaves transparency very low.
IAU2009 Collector card reprint
We’ve heard a rumour that the RASC National Observing Committee is having a reprint run of three of the astronomy collector cards pictured above. This is great news. They were…
Serenity Image Run #5
On the night of Thursday 2018 August 30th EDT, or Friday 2018 Aug 31 UT, I went out in the intermittent cloud and heavy dew to run a test of…
Serenity Imaging Day 4
Serenity Imaging Day 4 Still commissioning. Another hour last night from when the stars came out until the fog and dew stopped the work. The 90 degree diagonal came off…
Serenity Imaging Day 3
Serenity Imaging Day 3 Another hour last night from when the stars came out until the mosquitos drove me indoors. Successful alignment with Arcturus and Altair (after 3 attempts), pointing…
The Serenity Imaging Platform
Some years ago we realized that the increasing height of the sugar maple tree and two ash trees near the SCG Observatory would cause us to relocate the observatory farther…
Imaging Day 2
Last night was the 2nd successive night of somewhat successful imaging, mainly used as a configuration and calibration session. New sticky foamy weatherstripping went along the wall/roof interface, to help…
Imaging Again!
The last many months have seen a decided lack of imaging and astronomical observing. It probably all started when the 16 year old wooden pier was removed as it was…
Bright meteor 20180629 01:24:58 EDT
Reviewing the nightly allsky2 images of bright meteors, we came across this *nice* meteor at 05:24 UTC or 01:24 EDT. Needless to say, we were not awake to see this…