Amateur Astronomy

Fireball on Jupiter

andyroberts — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 05:52:19 +0000

FIREBALL ON JUPITER: An amateur astronomer in Japan has video-recorded a fireball on Jupiter. This marks the third time in only 13 months that amateur astronomy buffs have detected signs of something hitting the giant planet. Will the latest impact leave behind a visible cloud of debris? .

SPACE STATION and SPACE PLANE FLYBYS: This is a good week for satellite watchers in the USA and Canada. Both the International Space Station and the US Air Force X-37B space plane are making a series of favorable passes over North American towns and cities. The spacecraft are easy to find using our Simple Satellite Tracker–an app for iPhones and Android. Visit http://simpleflybys.com for downloads and more information.

Prepping WISE to Pop its Lens Cap

andyroberts — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:38:35 +0000

Prepping WISE to Pop its Lens Cap

Originally uploaded by NASAJPL

This image shows an infrared view of the launch of NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, on Dec. 14, 2009 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California

Stephan’s Quintet – Hickson Compact Group 92

andyroberts — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:48:13 +0000

This image released by NASA in Washington on September 9, 2009, a portrait of Stephan’s Quintet, also known as Hickson Compact Group 92, was taken by the new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. These Hubble observations are part of the Hubble Servicing Mission 4 Early Release Observations. NASA astronauts installed the camera during a servicing mission in May to upgrade and repair the 19-year-old Hubble telescope.

Amateur Astronomy Sky this Week

andyroberts — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:52:38 +0000

Amateur Astronomy Sky this Week

Well not this week as you read this, but it was this week when it first went out and I think the Amateur Astronomy video is well worth watching now

Amateur Astronomy with The Homemade Dobsonian Telescope

andyroberts — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:31:58 +0000

The Homemade Dobsonian Telescope

Originally uploaded by webjones

The Homemade Dobsonian Telescope is great for Amateur Astronomy

10″ f4.7 primary mirror. Fully manual operation. webjones bought the mirrors, focuser, and finder, but built the rest with materials readily available at Home Depot or Lowe’s. A carpenter working on new homes (back in Mississippi) graciously donated some scraps of 3/4″ cabinet-grade plywood, which I believe is birch. A full accounting of the project can be found at webjones.net/telescope_v1

Uploaded by webjones on 19 Aug 06, 10.29PM GMT.

Excellent use of materials for Amateur Astronomy

Venus again

andyroberts — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:19:28 +0000

Venus has been a special star or rather planet recently not so much for being in conjunction with other bodies but for being particularly bright in the afternoon sky. This is because of the eliptical orbit which has seen Venus rise much higher than normal.

Venus Conjunction

andyroberts — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:06:48 +0000

Venus Conjunction

Originally uploaded by h3_six

h3_six is sure there are much better photos of this event but still quite likes this one with lights in the tree and in the sky.
For more photographs of the conjunction suggests searching flickr for “Venus, Moon and Jupiter” and Venus occultation.

Astronomy photos on a Map

andyroberts — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 12:22:34 +0000

This World map shows Astronomy photos on Flickr by location

Tags: astronomymap flickr world

Harvest Moon

andyroberts — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:45:52 +0000

Harvest Moon

Originally uploaded by SugaShane

There was a Harvest Moon last night again, beautiful.

That big fat moon;s gonna shine like a spoon and we’re gonna let it, we won’t regret it.

Big Andromeda galaxy – M31

andyroberts — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:30:56 +0000

This is a single capture from August 2006, about one year ago. It’s all a bit technical so maybe not exactly astronomy for beginners

This capture is taken with a LX10 meade fork and an astrocamera Baker-Schmidt d=20cm focal=400mm f/2 using my old Canon EOS 300D
exposure: 253 seconds – ISO 200
processing with Deepskystacker 2.6.3
raw processing:
Bayer matrix (no interp.)
stacking:
light – entropy weighted average (high dynamic range)
darkframe – auto adaptive weighted average by xamad

Tags: Big, Andromeda , galaxy, M31