We will be at the observatory at 9:30pm tonight

We will be open at 9pm tonight. It's difficult to say how ling we will be there probably a couple of hours.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Slow going with the t point software

We had 10 stars in and then the mount went out of control.

We saves the model and now we are trying to start a new model.

At times the pc acts strange with the cursor acting up a bit.

The mount tried to do a meridian flip when it went out if control and it didn't need to.

Here's a photo of the screen with the software running while we were working in this.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Here I'll try the post again of the comet

No processing canon eos t1i


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Champaign Rd,Lincoln Park,United States

This is a screen shot of one of the comet photos, maybe it will post


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Victoria Ave,Lincoln Park,United States

We will be open tonight at about 9pm, photo of the comet below

Here's a photo unprocessed of the comet which was near the double cluster yesterday.

We will be open around 9pm tonight.

The comet was disappointing to look at with eyepieces. Looks better in a photo.

Probably to much sky glow and the comet is fairly small faint and with a very faint tail, really invisible even in the c14 with the naked eye looking through an eyepiece.


I'd inched the image but I'm having a blogpress problem at this time and will update it later.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sometimes HDR photos are just wonderful

Cloud conditions at sunset, HDR photo from iPhone 4.

Of course we have to look for breaks on the clouds to observe, that's obvious. It's supposed to be clear tonight, I'll have to keep checking.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Comet Hartley will be near the double cluster Thursday

The big question for us in Michigan is, will the skies be clear enough to see it?

Before you run out with binoculars to see this, remember this is a faint object and it magnitude rating is actually the overall brightest if the entire object. So it may be very faint and difficult to see. Especially in skies that we have in Lincoln Park Michigan which have a lot of sky glow and light pollution.

Here's a chart of what it should look like in a wide field telescope at low power. Keep in mind this is a charting program and the comet will look a lot fainter than this representation in even a large telescope.

The best view of it will not be a view at all but would be from a camera taking photographs of it.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Drive out toward Ann arbor

I went out toward Ann Arbor Sunday night and the sunset was spectacular. I stopped and took sine photos. I was out a little to late to get earlier, brighter sunset photos.

I tested my iPhone 4's ability to shoot low light sunsets with the HDR mode. HDR takes more than one photograph very quickly one after another and combines them to increase the contrast or perhaps I should say flatten the contrast. It's difficult to say what it's doing, but basically it's trying to show more detail in bright and shadow areas where detail would be fully lost. Either blown out and too white and bright or just black because the photo is to dark. HDR takes different exposures and then tries to combine them with to show more detail. Sometimes it works, sometimes it makes the photo look worse. I thought HDR might improve handheld photos through a telescope eyepiece, but it usually makes the resulting still look worse.

Here is a photo of the dark skies as the sunset turned toward twilight.

This at ford lake.

When I returned the sky was finally clearing, but I was tired from a long weekend and it was after midnight. So u didn't out out a post and open up the observatory Sunday, but I took a quick look through a telescope at home and then put it away after only five minutes of observing.

Hopefully we cab start observing soon. Clouds are supposed to be in the skies tonight so I wont be announcing an opening tonight.

(photo below is an HDR photo if ford lake, Ypsilanti Michigan.)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone