Will be opening up the observatory at about 9:30 tonight

We may be doing a little bit of adjusting if the telescope due to a computer telescope mount issue but we still plan on having fun.

Some club members should show up as well. If you'd like to visit it should be a great night for viewing and we may have other telescopes setup outside as well.

If you under 18 you need to bring a parent along as this is not a student event. So bring out you mom or dad and check out the stars with us.

Tonight we will look at Saturn, the Saturn Nebula and the ring nebula as well as other objects.

Maybe even Pluto with the help of our Stellacam video camera.

But we won't be looking at the moon as it's bot out tonight.




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Will not be open today due to haze and other commitments

I might head out to a place near the waterfront in Wyandotte to look at the full moon. But I won't open up the observatory tonight.

There is a lot of haze and that would adversely affect viewing and I've had a busy day.




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Video pullback of moon at restaurant parking lot

Late last night I was at Buffalo Wild Wings.

I ended up taking out my telescope and showed about a dozen customers Abd a few staff members the moon.

Here's a short video of the moon as my iPhone video tapes it for a few seconds. I pull the camera off the eyepiece and you can see the moon up by the street light in the parking lot.

The moon looks pretty good most telescopes as it's our closest neighbor in space.

It looks a lot better with your eyes looking through my telescope than this video shows.

We will be open tonight at the observatory, but from 8 to 10pm there will be a meeting at the observatory with members of the observatory special interest group. We always welcome visitors, and if you happen by we should be able to show you a view through one of the telescopes on site.

We might be doing some experiments with equipment configurations, our computer equipment and possible cameras on the telescope. But we try to take time to show visitors sone objects through the big telescope. We will likely have smaller telescopes outside of the observatory as well which can give good views as well and it's often nice to look at a few objects or through smaller telescopes and then work your way up looking through different telescopes and then end with a view of one or more objects through our large 14 inch c14 at the observatory. That is usually a fun way to visit an observatory and we should have at least two telescopes setup outside for visitors.

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We tested taking photos with the solar scope yesterday

Tim Dey and I did a test of the Lunt solar scope. We wanted to see if we could take photos using a different camera and a t ring.

We were not able to directly mount a Canon eos and take a photo because the light cone thrown out will not reach the sensor chip.

Many don't use this scope to do photography of the sun.

There may be a modification that Lunt has to allow photos through the Lunt. We have a small 35mm scope so it's not often used by astronomers for photographing the sun. They often use 60mm or other large telescopes. Those solar telescopes are much more expensive.

We will likely be getting a modified tube from Lunt. Thus will be shorter and allow kore photography options.


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Will return at 10:30 pm for more viewing

Despite some haze and marginal skies we plan on opening up tonight.




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We will try to do some solar observing at approximately 5:30pm at HJRO

Today is Tuesday ad I'll check out the sun at 5:30 pm

Visitors are welcome but children under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or school teacher to be admitted to the observatory.




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Here's a video clip of the moon observing I threw together

Not in any way an astro photograph but just a sample of what you can see. Actually the moon looks a lot better than the video will show. But this is an iPhone.

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Did a little bit of sidewalk astronomy at Old Chicago Pizza

Tonight I went by a local restaurant and setup my binocular telescope to view the moon and show anyone who happened by the moon. About 20 people stopped for a moment to look at the moon.

Everyone seemed pleased. Then after running an errand I decided to see how bad the skies were at the observatory. Keep in mind the weather forecast was saying it would rain tonight and I expected clouds. I didn't announce the observatory was open because I expected poor visibility and possible clouds. I put a last minute post on the Faac user group that I would take a look at the sky from HJRO and updated a few with sone test shots I took of Saturn with my iPhone looking through the eyepiece.

You can't get really good shots of a planet with an iPhone, but I like to toy around with it sometimes to see what I can get. Here's a sample photo below from the iPhone.

Saturn through the c14 using a 15mm eyepiece, iPhone at the eyepiece.
I also shot some with an 8mm eyepiece and also uses a Barlow for sone shots. The weather was clear enough for visual and 15mm eyepiece views bit much more didn't reveal better images, just larger fuzzy images with no additional detail.

Good viewing at lower powers could see Cassini division with 25mm and 15mm eyepieces.

There was some marginal seeing at times with warm air currents. Some stars twinkled which is not a good sign for astro imagers.





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Observatory will be open at 9:30 tonight

Children under 18 mist be accompanied with a parent to view through the telescope.

Enter through the small gate near the Jr High parking lot.

Greg


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