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Hello Mike,

I would be quite interested in joining you at the Equuleus Observatory
this evening, if you do intend on observing. However, I do note that
you might be fairly tired from the hard work, so if that is the case,
and you'd rather re-schedule, please let me know.

Also, thanks for the classic report - I really enjoy reading all your
details, as it gives me the ability to really imagine the targets you
describe. As a result, I have a quite decent "Virtual Obsession"
thing going here. ;-)

If it's a go for tonite, perhaps I could bring my sketchpad, pencil,
eraser & smudger?

Le Photon Guy

Rol

Be most welcome, Sir Frank, to our merry band of OAFs!

Don't sweat the Monty Python stuff. In fact, Mike Wirths was kind
enough to lend Janice & I some tapes of Monty Python reruns! As well,
there are many soundfiles he placed in the "sillyfiles" directory to
give you a flavour. I think that either astronomy or hilarity OR
both are the general themes here.

Glad you're here...

Photons for Hire...

Roland

Welcom Frank,

I hope you find this to be a fun list.

(The monty python isnt a requirement of posting. I just happens
sometimes. Ni Ni Ni!)

-ad

--- In OAFs@y..., moxie@m... wrote:

Hi Mike and everybody!

Just posting to say that I have officially become an oaf--thanks

for

inviting me. Just got back from a long weekend in To. and am

catching

up on the e-mail traffic (almost heavier than the 401!). Like
Attilla, I fear I will be severely Pythonically challenged but am
willing to take the risk. Hope to see yo'all out observing soon.

Frank

Hi Mike and everybody!

Just posting to say that I have officially become an oaf--thanks for
inviting me. Just got back from a long weekend in To. and am catching
up on the e-mail traffic (almost heavier than the 401!). Like
Attilla, I fear I will be severely Pythonically challenged but am
willing to take the risk. Hope to see yo'all out observing soon.

Frank

Very cool Attilla!

Having images every 8 minutes would allow for a much nicer animation (it
always looks so choppy that I never get much of an idea of the actual
movement). We know a guy (Fred Richardson) that does some horse tranport for
us, he also happens to be an ex-parrot....No an ex- meteorologist! He might
be able to help you out I'll grab his e-mail when I go to the barn and pass
that on to you, hes a super nice guy and I'm sure he'd get a kick out of
what you're trying to do!

clear skies--

Mike W

Fetchez la vasche!

Quoi?

Fetchez la vasche!



And now for something completely different.....an observing report:

Well I did'nt think I'd be doing much observing yesterday it was an especially long day at the barn (lots of lessons and that dreaded activity...manual labour!) but it was so nice Ithought I'd at least get a peek at Jupiter and Saturn . I got the 18" nicely collimated and ran the fan on it for an hour while it got dark enough to do a 2-star alignment. The seeing seemed best during this time, but deteriorated so I decided to do some deep sky. It turned out to be quite transparent and I stayed out much longer than planned..it was great!

Date- Mar 18th 2001, 7:00-9:00 pm
Location- 10km west of Perth Ont, Equuleus Observatory (roll-off roof type)
Conditions- Transparency LM 6.4 seeing approx 2-3 arcsec, 0 deg C no wind
Instrument 18" f/4.3 Starmaster dob with tracking

Objects viewed:

Ngc 1514: Large PN in Tau (2 X2 min) mag 10.9 annular shape with brightening at either end, hint of a dumbell-like shape easy central star.
Ngc 3115: "Spindle galaxy" in Sextans wonderfull high surface brightness galaxy with almost stellar nucleus. 8X3 min 9.3 mag somewhat like a "flattened sombrero " with no dark lane
Ngc 2359 Thors Helmet, an intricate emmision neb in Cma much more detail visible with OIII filter delicate loops and filiments visible
Ngc 2261: Hubbles variable neb, bright fan-shaped neb with central 1/3rd being quite bright bright star at its apex
Ngc 2392: Eskimo neb in Gem is a lovely bluish PN with a faint inner hood and easy central star
Ngc 3242: Ghost of Jupiter is a PN in Hya slightly smaller than 2392 and more condensed. It had a blueish-green colour with a thicker inner hood and a faint central star. The overall shape was more oblong than the Eskimo. If seeing was better the detail would have been amazing!
Hickson 44: A compact galaxy cluster with the brightest member being 3190. This group found in the neck of Leo is the brightest of the Hicksons and is visible in an 8". 3190 was the bright one at 13.1 it looked to be an edge on with "d" (3187) close by and also the faintest of the group (14.7) All 4 members were easily visible in the same FOV, very nice!
Hickson 57: Also in Leo but much fainter and more compact, this is Copelands Septet. This was my 1st time viewing this group and I only got 5 of the 7 but I think it will be easier with better seeing as several are very close together. Ngc 3753 is the brightest at 13.6, but these are much smaller galaxies than in 44, so they appeared as small soft stars. I'll have to try this one again at higher power.

I also did a bunch of Messiers but I think the highlight was seeing Copelands septet and the beauty of Ngc 3242.
I also got a great view of M82 at 3oox, tons of detail!


So is anyone into joining me this evening? I'll be out from 7:00 pm on so let me know if you're coming!


Ni!

Mike W

I have found what could be the source of all the satellite
pix you see on all those weather websites. The files at:



get updated as often as once every 8 minutes and are unprocessed and
do not have map overlays applied.

To me, the "weather products" one sees on commerical weather sites
look like processed version os these images.

So, I thought "Hey, I could hack my own satellite images." (rubbing
hands rapidly with glee).

I wrote a script to combines the 3.9, 6.75, 10.7 and 12.0 micrometer
infrared images of the south east ontario area.

I am trying to create a near-realtime map of clouds around the ottawa
area. The problem is dont understand the science that would allow one
to derive total cloud cover from sat images. So I played around with
a compositing algorithm. I'd say it so-so at the moment. When its
clear in ottawa, the map shows reasonably dark. Cloudy shows up
at grey or white. I think i'll need to keep tweaking it.

You can see the results on the OAFs mainpage. The image is quite small
to keep the processing times low. But I it gets updated as often
as every 8 minutes (NASA willing). I think that is cool since the
weather websites seem to do it only once per hour.

If you have ideas on how to make that image more useful, please
let me know. (I'd really like to know the algorithm for deriving
total cloud cover from sat pix.)

Clear skies, in near-realtime

-ad

"its wafer thin!"

The invite is always there to any and all the observatory is open day
or night, right now it is a bit of a slog thru the snow but that seems
to be melting nicely. The only catch is I need to be around. :)

Mike Z

--- In OAFs@y..., r.prevost@h... wrote:

Hi Mike(Z)!

Wouldn't you know it!... I won't be able to make it out tonight.
However, I am very interested in seeing your observatory at some

point

soon, if the invite repeats. Have a great evening of observing!

Enviously, ;-)
Roland

Hello All,

I am planning on observing at the carp airport tonight. I plan on
being there between 7:30 and 8 and observe for a couple/few hours.
Any who care to join me are welcome.

Matt

Hi Mike(Z)!

Wouldn't you know it!... I won't be able to make it out tonight.
However, I am very interested in seeing your observatory at some point
soon, if the invite repeats. Have a great evening of observing!

Enviously, ;-)
Roland

I'd like to observe tonight.

Err. What is the "south march observatory"?

-ad

I will check the group after dinner, but if you're interested in going
out or even coming over to the South March Observatory give me a call

Mike
592-5603

looks like it will remain clear for tonight anyone looking for
company at a dark site?

Mike Z

Roland,

No I do not have all the equipment I need for photography. I do not
have an off-axis guider or a rectical ep. I simply use a tele-
extender and turn the drive on and let it go. The results are not
too bad (the m42 picture I uploaded was scanned from a print, like
the others, so it has lost a lot of detail). I never spend more then
1 min. polar aligning so my shots are only good for a few minites. I
have let them go for as long as 5 min but the stars usually end up as
jagged lines ( due to vibrations and drive errors). It is obvious in
these shots that there is a lot more detail (M42 is about twice the
size of a 3 min shot) but trailing is too bad to be "nice to look
at". Anyway I use a Nikkormat FT2 (nikon) fully manual camera which
has a fine matte focusing sceen installed. (This is great for
focusing stars but a lot harder to focus on the moon) and the
standard attaching stuff (tele-extender and t-ring). I have also
tried some piggy back work with a 50mm and I will be trying again
soon with a used 135mm I bought last year.

In short, I am a visual observer who was given a great camera for
free just because the light meter didn't work, and have been
experimenting a little here and there. My first love will always be
on the visual side, but the photography stuff I find interesting and
a challenge. I generally use the money I have saved for astronomy on
visual stuff before I would buy photo stuff. But, I am still on the
look out for a used longer focal length lens (ie 300mm) to start a
little more deep sky piggy back work. If I ever find one which is a
good deal I'm sure I would buy a guiding ep very shortly there
after. I'm not sure I have the patience to use a cheap off- axis
guider as finding a suitable guide star sounds like it would be very
frustrating, and I am not willing to spend 200 or 300 bucks on a good
guider with adjustable prism and all. So, I probably won't be doing
much prime focus stuff.

clear skies,
matt





--- In OAFs@y..., r.prevost@h... wrote:

--- In OAFs@y..., "Matt Weeks" <mweeks@i...> wrote:

The file was under your folder, I'll move it back to the main

list

now.

Thanks Matt,

What you did makes perfect sense - I never thought of that. Looked

at

your photos. The one I liked best was the 18mm afocal moon photo

you

took. What's the equipment used. Your M42 was taken without

tracking

it says. Have you got the equipment required to take a tracked

photo?

If you ever want to do an astrophoto session and need to borrow

some

equipment of mine, let me know. Thanks for the downloads.

Later,

Rol ( Photonman )

--- In OAFs@y..., "Matt Weeks" <mweeks@i...> wrote:

The file was under your folder, I'll move it back to the main list
now.

Thanks Matt,

What you did makes perfect sense - I never thought of that. Looked at
your photos. The one I liked best was the 18mm afocal moon photo you
took. What's the equipment used. Your M42 was taken without tracking
it says. Have you got the equipment required to take a tracked photo?
If you ever want to do an astrophoto session and need to borrow some
equipment of mine, let me know. Thanks for the downloads.

Later,

Rol ( Photonman )

Hello Roland,

The file was under your folder, I'll move it back to the main list
now.

Matt
--- In OAFs@y..., r.prevost@h... wrote:

--- In OAFs@y..., "Matt Weeks" <mweeks@i...> wrote:

I just posted some of my attemps at astrophotography in the files
section under "astrophotos" if anyone is interested.

Hi Matt!

We attempted to find your astrophotos but only found a temporary

empty

directory there. Later, we couldn't even find your directory. Do

you

require assistance with the files or is it just that something
interrupted the transfer? We're curious to see what astrophotos
you've been up to...

A Photon travels thousands or millions of light years and ends up
writing it's autograph on your film.

Every Photon's famous!

Rol

Thanks Mike (W) for your many quite uplifting and funny sound files.
They come through quite quickly and fast on Roger's Internet. Just
what the doctor ordered!

Thanks also Mike (Z) for your MP3 version of "The Bright Side of
Life". Sounds really nice in stereo over headsets! Had me whistling!

Photonically & Pythonically

Rol

--- In OAFs@y..., "Matt Weeks" <mweeks@i...> wrote:

I just posted some of my attemps at astrophotography in the files
section under "astrophotos" if anyone is interested.

Hi Matt!

We attempted to find your astrophotos but only found a temporary empty
directory there. Later, we couldn't even find your directory. Do you
require assistance with the files or is it just that something
interrupted the transfer? We're curious to see what astrophotos
you've been up to...

A Photon travels thousands or millions of light years and ends up
writing it's autograph on your film.

Every Photon's famous!

Rol

Hello everyone,

I just posted some of my attemps at astrophotography in the files
section under "astrophotos" if anyone is interested.

Matt


"She has great big......tracks of land!!"

A couple of yahoo groups that might be interesting:

Astronmical sketching:


A bunch of people observing Mars:


ecky ecky Ni

-ad