Amazingly more people have been showing up when we didn't announce the site as being open.

We've been out on some clear nights, but due to construction activities we haven't been announcing we'd be out there.

We've been experimenting trying to register the supernova on a camera photograph with m101, but had no luck in getting the photo to look good.

Part of the problem is sky glow and our location being in a very bright environment. We are in the city so there is a lot of sky glow.

We don't have the best astrophotography cameras, actually our Stellacam is a video camera which supposedly does it all, but it used video signals and really is a enhanced video camera. This limits it's quality of output and usefulness.

A blog reader asked me if he could come by and see the supernova. The short answer is you can stop by, but I don't think you'll see the supernova and m101 visually. The supernova would appear as one of a few stars if it's bright enough and we can locate it. We may locate it and see stars and part of the core of the galaxy and guess which faint star may be the supernova, but you probably won't know which one is the supernova while looking because you may not even see the core due to skyglow to figure out which star is the supernova. So if you looked at the sky right now with the c14 from the observatory you may see a field of stars and say I saw it, but you may not be able to tell which star was the actual supernova.

The supernova is getting more dim we believe because it may have been discovered later than scientists thought it was. It may not be getting brighter but fainter and the weather doesn't look promising for viewing.

If we are out we always welcome visitors. We are often out but are volunteers so we don't have set hours. We are usually out between 9pm and midnight on clear sky nights. Sometimes I go out there very late at night but I don't announce it because the sky clears and most people are already asleep. If we are out there we almost always welcome any visitor that stops by as long as they are over 18 or with a parent or guardian.


Here's a test process of an earlier shot of m42 I took some months back at HJRO. This is the core of the Orion Nebula. I played and adjusted the color curves of this image using a new app I downloaded on my iPad called "Filterstorm". This is a pretty fun iPad app and may not be as good as more advanced apps but is fun to use and play with and does a pretty good job on photos. It introduces some noise and doesn't have as powerful a noise filter as some desktop apps.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad