2008 SCT-User Imaging Contest

http://www.darkatmospheres.com/contest/2008/
I came in 2nd place in this contest and won a great observing chair: http://www.buyastrostuff.com/store/Metal-astro-chair-frame-page.htm

I got my CGE back!!!!

I was very excited to get my CGE back from repair at Celestron and as luck would have I got a good 3 nights out of 4 of clear skies and an old moon!

I was tough getting back into the swing of things, but I'm happy to have it back.  The last night I split my time between the C8i SE (Orange tube on your Left) and the CGE with the DSO rig (White scopes on your Right).

As the haze and clouds began to build this last night I took off my DLSR from the white, DSO setup and had to pose as I was so excited to have both out and running at the same time.

I was sitting in an observing chair that I won from the SCT User Contest 2008 (http://www.darkatmospheres.com/contest/2008/).  It's actually a great chair!!

Now to process all my data!  :)

Mike

Jupiter and Io Tranist in Excellent Seeing with an 8" SCT September 11 2009 Astronomy.FM

http://astronomy.fm/aapod/2009-09-11_Jupiter-and-Io-Tranist-in-Excellent-Seeing-with-an-8
My 1st Amateur Astronomy Picture Of The Day AAPOD

Jupiter-20090822 - finally a break!

I got burned by lying, hiding clouds a week ago and a week before that was poor seeing.  So it has been 3 weeks since my last good night on Jupiter.

Finally a break in clouds and good seeing too!  I'd say the whole night's seeing was 6-8/10 and 3/5 transparency.  Rare indeed!

I wasn't diligent enough to catch the Io occultation of Europa.  I missed it by less than 30minutes!  :(   I did get setup and imaged this fine one before the clouds rolled back in.

I missed the occultation but didn't realize until after that the Wesley Impact Spot 2009 was nearing the CM.  I'm not sure I see it....  Is that it in the lower right???  It's nearly gone if I got it at all...

Thanks,

Mike

2009 - June - Skeet

My dad, brother and his girlfriend all came to the DCWC for some skeet before heading to the beach the next day. Hey, better late than never, this was from June. My dad took video that I'll post later!

Astronomy - Planetary - Venus (all years) Gallery

All my Venus photos in RGB or B&W (no UV or IR yet)

RocketFuelDump from 2007-12-12

When I 1st saw this I was thinking wow, what a huge comet, I don't remember hearing about this. I grabbed my binoculars from inside and saw it had moved relative to the stars FAST! Then I wasn't sure what it was. Of course I grabbed the camera and tripod. The result is here. I'm not sure why I didn't post it a year and a half ago?!

Animation of the fuel drifting in the upper atmosphere, note how it moves relative to the stars.

http://maphilli14.webs.com/Astronomy/Phenomena/RocketFuelDump-20071212/1.html

More detail here:

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/2042248/page/0/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/all/vc/1

and here:

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/2042270/page/0/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/all/vc/1

and if anyone has the news release please share!