Author: Roland Roberts

Okay, we’ve finally managed to get the web site transferred, but pictures aren’t yet working. Yeah, I know, what’s the point of a photo web site without pictures. Sorry, I’m working on it.

This morning I managed to drag myself out for a pre-dawn walk/jog and enjoyed the view of a thin waning crescent moon east (below) a brilliant Venus. Higher up was Jupiter. The jog was nice, and the view was a nice extra bonus.

A couple of dozen folks showed up in Shore Road Park hoping to get a peek at Venus transiting the Sun today, but the weather did not cooperate. After setting up shortly after 5pm, I had to cover the equipment due to some light rain which passed through. Eventually the Sun peeked through a thin …

Transit of Venus 2012, Clouded out in BrooklynRead More

Event Cancelled due to Clouds/Rain. Yes, again. The past few years, TV Turnoff Week and stargazing have not worked too well due to a string of bad weather. The clouds are not expected to clear out and the local forecasters are all mentioned that we won’t get to see the “super moon” tonight. Nor much …

Stargazing in Shore Road Park (Cancelled due to Weather)Read More

Blech. Had to do some manual database maintenance. Gave up on default multi-site configuration as too painful, and turned off all caching. Things seem to be working, but we’ll see.

I’ve been rather frustrated with my web site lately as I’ve been getting random Drupal failures telling me it can’t find “settings.php.” Utter nonsense; the file is there, permissions are correct, and it usually finds it just fine. So, if you’ve been confronted with a rather odd home page or link when navigating my site, …

Random Drupal FailuresRead More

Okay, temptation overtook me again . I pulled out the IR blocking filter and took an hour’s worth of images, plus enough calibration frames that I should have been able to eliminate the flaws in the previous images. The results, below, are better, but there are a few nagging issues. [G2:41283 class=g2image_centered exactsize=800] This time, …

M31 with a Meade DSI Pro II – reduxRead More

The weather was just too clear last night to avoid the temptation, so I dragged out my equipment and started taking pictures. Admittedly, almost anything done from here in Brooklyn, “pretty-picture” wise, has to be considered practice since it rarely works out unless its the moon or planets. But I thought I would try either …

M31 with a Meade DSI Pro IIRead More

I’m listening to a radio commercial about the shuttle bus to Newark Airport. They want to claim 184 passenger miles per gallon. My minivan is not particularly fuel efficient, getting about 22-23 miles per gallon (note the missing “passenger” qualifier). On short trips around town, like a run out to Home Depot, I’m the only …

Misleading Math, Fuel Economy, Public Transportation.Read More

Due to poor weather, tonights event is being canceled. I am an optimist at heart, but the forecast is now for cloudy all the rest of today and overnight. The original announcement is below, but the event is canceled. We’ll be hosting the annual stargazing event in Shore Road Park on Sunday evening from 8:00-9:30 …

PS102 TV Turnoff Week Stargazing – CANCELLEDRead More