How to build an observatory – part2
Project steps in approximate order needed to complete by end of August 2012 xxx make that September 8th, 2012. Life gets in the way of hobbies… always has always will.…
allsky1 camera system laptop failure
The laptop computer that runs the SCO allsky1 camera had a hard drive failure (exacerbated by all of the heat I suspect… will have to put more exhaust fans into…
How to build a new Observatory
We are building a new roll off building observatory for a large telescope. The concept was that this would be a quick and dirty, smallest footprint possible and low cost…
stellar planetary conjunction
The RASC Observers Calendar has notable events listed in its pages. Not accessible at all unless you purchase the calendar but perhaps one year, it will be. For Tuesday August…
Lennox and Addington Dark Sky Viewing Area
We visited the Sheffield Lake Conservation area on Sunday (2012 August 19) to do some canoeing and to see the Lennox and Addington Dark Sky Viewing Area 30 minutes north…
A trip to Point Petre
In July 2012 we were in the neighbourhood of Point Petre, the sourthernmost portion of Prince Edward County, near Sandbanks Provincial Park. At one time we were considering using it…
Perseid meteor shower peak
We were out in the evening of Saturday August 11th, 2012 but only got in about 90 minutes of viewing from 21:30 to 23:00 before the clouds rolled in. Kim…
Imagemagick and allsky1 camera image processing
Updated Thursday August 9th: Well, that did and did not work. Most of the noise went away but enough stayed to make it tough to analyze. Not only that, the…
imagemagick noise function broken?
For some years now, we’ve used the ImageMagick package on a linux server to process our allsky1 camera images, in particular to remove noise. For some reason, that function has…
More venting for allsky camera1
It has been a hot summer, often not cooling down at night at all, for many weeks now (July, August 2012). We’ve noticed that the peltier cooled CCD camera inside…
allsky2 interesting imagery
Every morning over coffee we sit down and scan through the imagery from the two allsky cameras from overnight. This morning (2012 August 02) we got some really great surprises.…
New Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance (SID) receiver goes live
We recently received a SID receiver that will detect solar storms impacting the Earth’s Ionosphere. It consists of a coiled loop antenna, in our case oriented east-west, connected to the…
Allsky camera vs the wasps
We’ve noticed wasps attempting to build nests up against the outside housing of the allsky1 camera system. We’ve taken them down twice and just noticed more wasps congregating yet again.…
Repurposing an old pier
This is a solar radio telescope pier from the decommissioned Algonquin Radio Telescope site in Ontario. We picked it up a few years ago with the intent to stick a…
KAON Open House Saturday July 14th, 2012
The Kingston Astronomy Outreach Network (KAON) held an open house, lecture and public observing session on Saturday July 14th, 2012 from 21:00-22:30 EDT at the Queen’s University Ellis Hall Observatory.…