Another sketch from LPHS

Here's a sketch of mercury setting in the evening last week over the high school. I took the picture from the top of the football stands.

The planet was low and impossible to see with the naked eye due to glare from the lights, but I saw it with binoculars. I was able to get a photo with an eos camera and processed it into a sketch using super camera app last week.

Mercury is the small dot above the chimney to the left.

You may have to click on the image and download the larger image to see the planet in this photo sketch as it's fairly small.



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A Great iPhone app - super camera app

Greg Ozimek, an active FAAC member met me at a local Taco Bell last week. We met to grab a quick snack and he had a pair of iphone charging cables he ordered over the Internet. These are affordable and were really convenient because they are longer than normal iPhone cables. As Greg was ordering some other cables he added them to his order for me. At Taco Bell I picked them up and paid him for them.

Then the fun began.

Greg recently purchased an iPod touch and has been researching some apps. He showed me a free app called Super Camera by Blue Onion Soft. This is a great piece of iPhone software and they have a slightly more advanced version with more filter and frame effects that cost 99 cents.

I immediately bought the dollar version and we started to play with photos at Taco Bell. Some great effects can be had even inthe free version of the app with a filter called sketch.

There are photoshop effects that can do this, but doing this in the iPhone or iPad quickly is a real blast.

The sketch filter seems to work best with architectural and building elements. Sometimes it works okay with soft and round features in natural objects but often its better with buildings.

Here's an example from a shot at HJRO.

But don't take my word for it, check out the quick sketch below my iPad made in less than 20 seconds.




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Tonight idid a quick test of registax software on a moon avi file

I was busy today and noticed the moon was out and the skies were clear but wouldn't be for long.

I decided to quickly get a clip from the Stellacam using the Meade refractor and try to see if registax could process it.

The pc at the observatory had been loaded earlier with registax 4 which is software that can convert avi movies from webcams into improved still images.

This was just a quick test and there is a lot to learn with thus software.

I didn't plan on spending much time there. The version four software chocked on avi files giving a frame decode error. I downloaded version 5 and the program stated it was version 5 beta when it launched.

Version 5 beta didn't choke on the same 5 second avi file.

I used default settings which took a long time to process.

At the end of processing the user can play with wavelet processing of the resulting image. This will give more relief and sharpness to some features like the edges of craters.


Here's one of the resulting images. I will likely spend a lot more time playing with registax in processing future video files taken at HJRO.

Is is just a test and there is a lot of room for improvement.




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Two nights of observing

Tuesday we had eight Faac members show up at the observatory. We had a few telescopes setup outside.

We were looking through these telescopes at M42, Saturn and the moon. We didn't look at a lot of objects but sone played with aatrophotography with cameras they brought along.

It was a great time.

Then Wednesday I was busy and couldn't get out until late. I decided to try something different. A spur of the moment bike ride and attempt to take a small scope along. I figured I could look at the moon at my destination if there was a spot for a tabletop mount.

I took a small scope to Old Chicago Pizza in Southgate Mi.

About ten people at the restaurant were able to view the moon. I took a 25mm, 15mn and 2x Barlow with me so we had four powers to use during my late dinner sidewalk astronomy session.

Here is a photo of last nights setup at Old Chicago.





I took a few photos if the moon through the eyepiece of this setup after eating a late night dinner. Below is one of my quick iPhone pictures of the moon.

Some turned out better than others. I don't have the entire moon in the shot below.


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The Hector J Robinson observatory remained closed Sunday night.

With poor visibility early on the threat of rain and winds we kept it shut up tonight.

Here's a picture of the observatory, sketched from an earlier night.




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Beginners night tonight at island lake

http://www.boonhill.net/faac/other/observe.html

See link above for the map.

Clear sky chart says it will be clear, but radar shows a lot of clouds tonight.

The clear sky chart is usually correct, but a few times each year it gets the forecast wrong.

If winds were moving clouds quickly we'd have clear skies by 7pm. Or if winds moved the clouds south.

I'm thinking that clear sky chart will be correct and we will have some clearing, but I think the clearing will be later in the night. We will have some demos and sessions for beginners if you arrive early.

My guess is it will be clear at spring mills pond by 10pm which is late and late viewing will be pretty good, but not excellent. A good view in a darker site is almost as good as an excellent view in a very bright site like the observatory site.

Weather and clouds at the observatory typically are an hour or two behind the site that is 50 miles west of us, so I'd expect conditions to not be very good in Lincoln Park early in the evening anyway.

So I'll be going to Island Lake to meet with other club members and visitors this evening.

I'll take a couple of small telescopes but others will likely be bringing larger ones.


Below is the current cloud conditions.



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I have a new toy, which is a stereo camera that takes 3d pictures. It's a Fujix w3 3d camera. It's really nice.

I tried taking a 3d picture of the moon tonight. This was late tonight through my Bt-80 binocular telescope. The moon didn't turn out very good through 3d stereo. I may be able to improve my moon photo 3d technique over time.

I was hoping to give people a sense of how cool it is to look at the moon through a binocular telescope, but you really have to look through a telescope that has the binocular feature to get the real impact of stereo viewing. The BT-80 seems to show the moon really well at 36 power, which is quite a bit more than most average binoculars. It sometimes looks really nice at higher power as well. I have to work a little on alignment of the binocular telescope at the higher 48 power using 15mm eyepieces. There is a little optical alignment issues with it. The view is so much better live.

Binocular telescopes can give some really interesting views of the moon, under less than ideal conditions. I know this may sound funny, but slight amounts of moving clouds with thin cloud cover moving over the moon can be stunning with binocular telescopes. The added effect of stereo viewing can often cause a more wonderful effect. Even viewing through thin tree branches when the moon is low can be interesting. It may sound funny to say that sometimes the view is more entertaining through these marginal conditions, but it seems true.

Last month during the rise of the full moon, with the shore ion event, the wide field of the binocular telescope with the low moon combined very nicely with some objects in the foreground flying past or or near the moon's vantage point. I saw a couple of jets and some birds fly past the moon or near it, This gave some added excitement to my viewing. Almost like bird watching and moon watching at the same time. Geese were flying down the river.

BEGINNERS NIGHT at Island Lake Recreational State Park
We have a beginners night tomorrow night at island lake recreational park, at the spring mills pond. This will be from 7pm until 12pm. Island lake is located near Kensington metro park. It's on the other side of the freeway. It's a state park and requires a different sticker, than the metro parks. If you can find Kensington metro park you can find Island lake.

The spring mill pond is about 3 miles away from the main entrance gate at Island Lake.

This event will have a few instructional demonstrations, one being how to collimate at Newtonian reflector. Another will be a sky tour. These are free but you have to pay or have a sticker to get into the park. If you have a telescope and are wondering how to use it you may be able to get help as well with that. If you call ahead the Ford Amateur Astronomy club they may be able to insure someone there will have experience with your kind or brand of telescope, but we often can deal with a wide variety of telescopes and there is usually someone there that can assist you.

Members like to chat with those who are new to astronomy, so don't be shy if you arrive, we understand everyone is new at some point. We really aren't bothered with most questions and actually love to chat and talk with anyone about astronomy,

Hopefully the weather will be clear tomorrow. It's clear tonight, but supposedly the transparency is kind of poor. And it could change. . . I saw some clouds threatening earlier. It seems warm enough to observe and have some fun, but I've had a long stressful day. I have not had anyone from the club call to ask me if I'm observing, so I'm going to skip observing tonight. I had a little bit of fun late at around 12:30pm playing with the binocular telescope at my house. I also was out at the observatory earlier today, and checked it out a bit, but didn't observe anything at that time as it was cloudy and I wanted to just do a few things inside the observatory.

Here's a photo from my 3d camera. This was a quick shot at the end of a FAAC board meeting that is attended by some of the members and officers of the Ford Amateur Astronomy Club. This photo was split up into the left and right photos that the camera takes and then I used a software program to create Red/blue anaglyph photo for this post. This requires red/blue glasses to see the 3d effect. The red and blue tint may not perfectly match you particular set of glasses as the minor adjustments of the software may not exactly match all red blue shades. The red blue 3d glasses often vary in quality so this doesn't look nearly as good as it would with a better dedicated 3d player.

Here you can see some members chatting at A Coney Island. I surprised them a bit, with this quick photo. This really looks nice on the back of the Fujix w3 3d camera that I have. It has a special display on the back of the camera that will show you the true 3d image and the camera doesn't require red/blue glasses like the image posted below.



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Location:Stereo photo experiment red/blue glasses FAAC member 3d image shown