There have been a lot of headlines lately about the Christmas Star or the Star of Bethlehem being visible on Dec 21st, the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. However, this event is not stellar in nature but rather the conjunction in the sky of the planets Jupiter and Saturn. Read more…
I managed to capture the pair this evening using 4” refractor, a manual alt-azm mount, a 21mm eyepiece and my iPhone attached the eyepiece. The field of view with that combination eyepiece and telescope is just a little over 2°. ThIs first picture is 37 minutes after sun set. After Read more…
In mid/late September, I ventured off for some socially distant observing at the site of the East Coast Video Astronomy Rendezvous (ECVAR). ECVAR is held at a great campground, Cool Breeze Campground located just outside of Galax, VA just over the North Carolina state border. The skies at Cool Breeze Read more…
Saturday night was the first night in quite some time that I set up my full EAA rig running off of 12 volt power. I encountered several issues ranging from Windows 10 updates, other software license issues and my battery monitor/relay device. After troubleshooting, I was able to get some Read more…
On Thursday, 16-Jul-2020, I attempted to view Comet NEOWISE (C/2020). Given how low it was on the northeast horizon and how short of an amount of time I would be able to observe the comet before it sank too low into the murky haze, I did not want to set Read more…
I’m definitely not a morning person, more of a night owl. That said, I decided to wake up early on Friday and Sunday (See prior posts) to get a peek at the comet. The good news is that as the comet speeds its way from the sun, from our vantage Read more…
I managed to get myself out of bed at 3:40am this morning to go and view C/2020 F3, a.k.a the morning comet NEOWISE. I met up with fellow amateur observer and NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, Doug Lively, at the top level of the parking deck next to the Cary Regional Read more…
I spent a couple of hours with other members of the Raleigh Astronomy Club last night, trying out socially distant observing where by we set up our respective telescopes in our own yards and shared views, observations and general chatting via Zoom. Here are few of the EAA (electronically assisted Read more…
Back on Apr 24, I participated in a Nationwide Star Party live streaming event. Below is a link to the YouTube video of that event. I begin my sharing my views thru my telescope at around 1 hour 12 mins into the recording. To view the entire video, click on Read more…
I set up my Hydrogen Alpha telescope (Lunt LS60ThaPTc B1200d2) atop my Celestron CG-5 Advanced GT mount for live streaming on Facebook. This was my first attempt at Live Streaming telescopic views on Facebook and the first time I’ve tried with my H-Alpha scope. I tried to switch from my Read more…