Science Daily: Mars
- Surprising insights about debris flows on Mars March 14, 2024
- Giant volcano discovered on Mars March 13, 2024
Science Daily: Uranus
- New images reveal what Neptune and Uranus really look like January 5, 2024
- Ringing in the holidays with ringed planet Uranus December 19, 2023
Science Daily: Pluto
- How Pluto got its heart April 15, 2024
- Evidence of geothermal activity within icy dwarf planets February 15, 2024
Science Daily: Kuiper Belt
- How Pluto got its heart April 15, 2024
- Evidence of geothermal activity within icy dwarf planets February 15, 2024
Author: Roland Roberts
3D Constellation Models
Last week I as at NEAF and as usual, the 3D constellation models were a hit. I’ve been reusing some very old model templates created ages ago but they have some problems…with the math that created them. This past year, I wrote up a spreadsheet with the calculations an a write-up on how to use …
Eclipse 2024 Preparation
Final setup and tests for Monday’s totality from Jackson, MO. I’m fortunate enough to have family living pretty much on the centerline for this one. Depending on which eclipse map web site I visit, the centerline either goes by about 50 meters west or 50 meters east of my location. This is a 1200×1200 crop …
Eclipse is Coming
I’ve been silent for the past year because…well, I’ve done pretty much nothing astronomy-wise. Life has kept me busy. But I’m fortunate enough to have relatives that live pretty much on the centerline of this eclipse (within a couple hundred meters or less, depending in which online map I consult). So, I’ve got 4 minutes …
Lost Drivers from the Days of Windows 7
So I haven’t used my Orion ST120 in a while which means I’ve gone through two OS upgrades from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and recently to Window 11. Which means I don’t have a driver for my archaic James Lacy LazyFocus controller that goes with my very nice first generation Moonlite focuser. Fortunately, I’m …
StarXTerminator 2.x: I’m sold
I’ve had mixed luck with StarXTerminator. When I first came across it, I found it worked better than StarNet for the images I was processing. Those were with the RedCat 51 at 250mm F/L. It was wonderful, so I bought a license and considered worth every penny. Then I started doing some wider field images …
Star Haven M31
As usual, between equipment issues and weather issues, I got much less than I expected. But it was a good time with friends from the club and I did get some images. Object M 31, in the constellation Andromeda Camera dual Canon T6i, modified Lens/Scope Rokinon 85mm f/1.4 @ f/4 Exposure 55 x 3 minutes …
PixInsight Background/Gradient Removal
Sometimes, you just have to keep asking the same question over and over again until you get a good answer. PixInsight has some really good background/gradient removal tools and if you use PixInsight, you’re immediately thinking of the Dynamic Background Extraction (DBE) or Automatic Background Extraction (ABE). Truth is, that’s what I always think of, …
Analyzing Images
So, this is a post, but I might convert it to a page for reference at some point. I’m exploring how to analyze my imaging train for aberrations and what I can do about it. ASTAP has a couple of built-in tools that make this easy. The question is what constitutes an aberration that is …
Weather, Weather….
It’s been nearly six months since the weather was decent around the new moon. I had all these plans and just need a couple of good nights to finish off a project with decent data. I guess I’ll start looking at what I have to see what I can get out of it. Really, I …
NGC 7000
This is the object that got me hooked on astrophotography. Well, sort of. I started a long time ago with a Pentax 35mm film camera and a CG5 mount and tried to take a picture of Cygnus. It was horribly underexposed, but one of the frames had just enough exposure to make out the North …