occultation Palinurus (4832)
Tonight, asteroid Palinurus (4832) will be occulting the star 2UCAC 34064331, magnitude 11.9. It will occur at 02:45 UT on 2014 Nov 26th, which in our time zone (-5 UT)…
convert current.png +distort DePolar 0 current-pan.png
Ever since I saw a sample of an allsky (or ultrawideangle) image being turned into a 360 deg panorama, I have known it was possible but did not know the…
Allsky camera 2 update
The replacement power supply and camera unit for Allsky2 (aka UWO10) arrived two weeks ago but has been delayed in installing for a variety of other projects already lined up…
Orionid Meteor Shower
That’s about all we had… One Orionid Meteor showed up on the allsky1 camera system on the mornign of Wed 2014 Oct 22. There were two other dimmer ones that…
Jupiter at FallNStars 2014
The seeing was pretty great for our Fall’N’Stars 2014 star party. Two days of Clear and two nights of clear. Pretty amazing… still talking about it weeks later. In any…
60cm Venor dobsonian telescope
This is the RASC-KC designed and built 60 cm Newtonian Telescope in a Dobsonian mount. It was great to have out and use in dark skies, for the first time…
fall’n’stars 2014
Glorius daytime *and* nighttime skies for Friday, Saturday and Sunday! The first time in memory. It was great. This is an image from Fall’N’Stars 2014 Star party on Saturday 2014…
Aurora! From X1.6 solar flare
Great night for aurora… started strong but after 1 hour outside in +4C weather, very bight moon rising and cloud starting to come in, we also went inside. Thanks to…
X1.6 Solar Flare
On Wednesday 2014 September 10th, starting around 17:31 UT, the sun had a major X class Solar Flare coming from Sunspot AR2158. The 1st note of this was on the…
ATM Flashback 1998
This is the original 60cm glass blank, to be ground down to form a telescope mirror. It took the better part of a year to do the rough grinding and…
Starfest 2014
It’s been 10 years since Kim & I last attended Starfest (near Mount Forest Ontario)… 2004. That was the year of a big storm microburst that destroyed out tent while…
Comet Hale Bopp 1997
From wikipedia: Comet Hale–Bopp (formally designated C/1995 O1) was perhaps the most widely observed comet of the 20th century and one of the brightest seen for many decades. It was…
Venus Jupiter Conjunction
This morning, Monday 2014 August 18th, there was a conjunction of the planets Venus and Jupiter. As they rose over our eastern horizon, they were less than 1/4 of a…
Public Lecture in astronomy Wed July 23rd 8pm
Wednesday, July 23, 2014 – 20:00 to 22:00 ET Special Event Speaker: Prof Bob Benjamin (University of Wisconsin-Whitewater) A Three-Dimensional View of the Milky Way Location: Ellis Hall Auditorium, Queen’s…
SCGObservatory updates
The StarlightCascade Observatory has a carpet on plywood on styrofoam insulation floor. Because it is fairly small, telescopes need to be stored away when not in use, to get out…