Calhoun County Park Star Party 2018
I attended the annual Calhoun County Park Star Party (Oct 5-7) for the first time this year. The sky wasn’t the best it could be. Friday and Sat night both had humidity and dew off the charts with variable fog…
nmbrandt
Pickett State Park Dark Sky Celebration Weekend 2018 (Sept 7-9)
Unfortunately we were mostly clouded out for the star party. From the sounds of it some of the other big star parties going on concurrently were also clouded out. It just wasn’t a good weather weekend for a large portion…
Cherry Springs Star Party 2018
I made the 13 hour trip up to Cherry Springs State Park for the Annual CSSP Star Party hosted by the Astronomical Society of Harrisburg PA, Inc. I went up a few days before the star party since it’s always…
Cherry Springs Star Party 2017 – Gallery
A couple images from last years 2017 CSSP that I finally got around to looking at. It wasn’t a very productive astrophotography trip but enjoyable none the less. If you’re going to come to a star party like this…
Back in Operation with Pics to Prove It!
I recently replaced the dome control electronics after the Foster Systems controller bit the dust and I replaced with a MaxDome II controller for rotation and shutter operation. It’s working flawlessly so far and I couldn’t be happier. I threw…
Look Rock Star Party 7/29/2017
I was the first one to arrive for the star party on Saturday night at Look Rock South. It’s a beautiful view to the south looking into the Smokies. We definitely had some clouds for the beginning of the…
7/6/2017 – Lightning Strikes
I’ve got multiple items across our home, garage, and the observatory which suffered from a local discharge on 7 The observatory was the worst hit with the computer, mount, 2 ethernet switches, powerline ethernet adapters, weather monitor, and possibly other…
Solar White Light – April 2, 2017
Getting ready for the eclipse and testing one of the imaging setups today. Took a single DSLR shot of a couple sunspots. Sun spot 2648 is on the left, 2645 is the most prominent group closer to center, with 2644…
Star Cloud NGC 206 in the Arms of the Andromeda Galaxy
NGC 206 is the brightest star cloud in the arms of the Andromeda Galaxy visible to us here on Earth. You often see M31 imaged wide field but there is a wealth of detail to be found in the…
M81 & M82 – Bodes Nebula and the Cigar
We’re in Galaxy Season and without the 10″ RC I’ve instead focused on the 5″ refractor with a small pixel size camera to squeeze out some detail. Imaged from the backyard observatory in ~20.5 mag/arcsec^2 skies.