Okay I'm back

I went out if town to see the shuttle launch in Florida.

It was a great experience. While down there I went to the beach. Explored and toured a couple of lighthouses and toured NASA

Also I went very quickly through a couple of air force museums on the way back to Michigan.

Here is a shot from the NASA tour.


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Last week we viewed the moon and worked on the observatory

Here's a fairly lousy photo of the moon using my iPhone


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It looks like clouds tonight we won't be open

Doppler radar shows clouds and we have clouds and haze here.

We won't be opening up tonight.

I was in Florida last week so I didn't have any posts for here but I heard Tim Dey opened up the observatory with Art Parent last week.


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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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