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The (Sub) Urban Astronomer Night 1
If you’ve been with me for a while, you know I spent over twenty years under an urban sky in downtown Mobile, Alabama’s Garden (historic) District. Despite light pollution that at its worst could...
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Get Ready...
Yeah, I know, sitting under stagnant and hazy or cloudy and stormy skies as August comes in, it’s difficult to believe the fall star party season will soon be here, but it will be. It actually gets...
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Where's the Blog?
A new entry will be waiting for you right here next Sunday morning. Why nothing new this Sunday morning? I've been on the road for the legendary Almost Heaven Star Party this past week, which is what...
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AHSP 2015
I knew there would be a 2015 edition of one of my favorite—maybe my absolute favorite in some ways—star party, the Almost Heaven Star Party held at Spruce Knob Mountain in West Virginia. Yes, I knew...
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“The Friendly Stars”
The quiet summer night when my City Lights observing runs began, a night over a decade before my essays finally morphed into The Urban Astronomer’s Guide, sometimes seems like it was just yesterday....
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Are my Eyepieces Good?
Measuring eye relief...Well, are they? Sure they are if you enjoy using them, but are they as good as they could be? Are you getting your money’s worth? What got me started thinking about testing...
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My Yearly M13
One of the reasons I’ve remained interested in deep sky imaging is that just when I am getting bored with it something new always comes along. In the film days, shooting with Tri-X in a cold camera...
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More Short Sub Imaging
Since I had pretty good results with the little ZWO ASI120MC on the deep sky the other night, I decided to give the minimalist camera a second outing, applying what I’d learned. If you weren’t here...
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The Nights Everything Goes Wrong Redux…
Bertha's backyard M13Sometimes everything goes right under the stars. Not all the time, though. Not hardly. Not if you are an astrophotographer, or at least dabble in that black art as I’ve been doing...
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Of Thises and Thats…
Rod at the PASIt’s a mixed bag this week, friends. This is the calm before the storm, I suppose, here on the cusp of yet another fall star party season. That begins for me in a couple of weeks with the...
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I’m Going to a Star Party
I’m going to a star party,Baby do you wanna go?I’m going to a star party,Baby do you wanna go?If you can’t make it, baby,Your sister Lucille says she wants to go,And I sure will take her…It is now fall...
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PSSG 2015
Everybody's having a great time at the 2015 Peach State Star Gaze. Wish you were here! Look for a full report next week...
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Peachy State
I go to a lot of star parties, but, unfortunately, I don’t get to observe at a lot of star parties. I’m usually flown in to be a speaker and am scopeless, having to content myself with looks through my...
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Let’s Get Going with PHD2
If you’ve read some of my recent posts on short-sub imaging, you know it’s not always necessary to guide your mount; it’s not always necessary to continuously monitor a star and make small corrections...
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Fall Star Party Season
I am afraid it is going to be a slow couple of weeks for the blog. I am on the road concluding my fall star party season with two last ones, the Deep South Regional Star Gaze and the Chiefland Star...
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The NEW CSP...
We are, most of us, now at the end of the fall star party season. It's been an exciting and busy and sometimes stressful couple of months. I know one thing for sure: I am one tired puppy. That didn't...
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DSRSG 2015: Dodging Raindrops...
Miss Veronica Lodge...What’s been the bane of U.S. amateur astronomers east of the Mississippi this year? The weather. The stinking weather. The horrible, cloudy weather. I hoped things were changing...
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Nights of the Living Star Party…
It had been a while since I’d visited the Chiefland Astronomy Village; I hadn’t been there since February 2015, actually. There was a number of reasons for that. Most prominently, the weather. As I...
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Smart Phones + Tablets + Amateur Astronomy: Where we are Now (Part I)
SkySafariWhere are we now with the devices that not only take up a substantial portion of the waking lives of many of us, but even threaten to make laptop computers obsolete for astronomy? Astronomy...
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A Revolution in Affordable Video Imaging…
As most of you know, astronomical video imaging, “deep sky video,” is my bag. While I’ve mostly been doing DSLR/CCD astrophotography the last year or so, I’ve never lost my love for video.A sensitive...
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