STREET-LIGHT ASTRONOMY

WOW! Awesome video, loving it and the nice voice accompanying it.
That is a radio voice. Twilight zone effect but for astronomy buffs like us.

Us astronomy buffs thrive at night under the stars enjoying our hobby, this video and incredible music gives me a great feeling in my night sky observers soul.




For his other interesting videos click here.

PERSEUS IS HOT!

Full of hot young stars that is. Tonight I had a pleasant time observing them all. I went out, looked up and the stunning view knocked me out. How can I find the right word to even to begin to describe the stunning view of Perseus, Pleiades, Pegasus, Cassiopeia and the planet Jupiter? How about wonderful, impressive and thrilling.

Right now it is getting chilly at 48* and I bundled up to enjoy some familiar deep sky sights. I'm touring with my  12 inch dobsonian, 25mm lens and 2x barlow lens. Jupiter is electric out there! That planet is getting a little bigger and every feature on it is very well seen and the moons are nice to observe. WOW What a sky! What a sight! I began by looking at Jupiter then going to my favorite part of Perseus which is the Mirfak area. I never get tired of exploring this awesome part of the milky way. It is so rich with young blue stars, a spectacular sight in my scope.

Then I poked around the Pleiades, my barlow lens brings out the nebulosity around Merope and other stars in really nice detail. I then aimlessly wandered around Triangulum, stopping at  the galaxy known as m33  and some of the galaxies around  Andromeda. Each site is so bright this time of year, really worth it going out in the chilly night, even for just a little while.

Check out this nice page on Triangulum, I printed it out and used it as my guide tonight and observed everything on it with my scope. It is very worth it to check out all the deep sky goodies in this not so well known and often overlooked area. Last week I scoured it with my binoculars.

Even though the weather is changing to the unwelcomed by stargazers and die hard observers  uncomfortable cold is returning for four months, it's worth it to pop out, take a few peeks and stay connected  to your deep sky hunting!  :)

AMAZING LUNAR & ATMOSPHERIC EFFECT !!

 A Week (ish) ago I went out to put the garbage out and the clouds were making an amazing effect around the moon. HAD to film it for everyone, so amazing!  I was so wowed. It is just amazing me our skies. It looks like a nebula effect. I took some shots then decided to try for a video and wow I got one. Then the clouds got moving.. wow!  Too amazing. Ever changing skies.  Photos below the video.

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Click on the icon on the right hand side of video too view it full screen and click bottom photos to see them larger.

Kicking Off A New Day With The Soccerball Cluster

From my observing journal: October  5 2011 

WOW!!  It was 6am and I went outside to browse around the winter sky. A beautiful 6:17am and  dawn was rising, orion nebula was a showpiece  and I could still see the orion nebula and surrounding stars. do you get the amazement of this? The sun was rising and all the stars were disappearing slowly and the nebula was still seen to the max. and the pleiades were all brilliant, just stunning. Loving my new binoculars!! 

Usually in my telescopes I can still see it big time but my binocs is  quite the star catcher. I was kicking off a new day with the soccer ball cluster. Do you know what the soccer ball cluster is??   Hint: It is a deep sky feature of Gemini, found by a major star found in the constellation.  This really cool, and a great idea, of an asterism was created by Phil Harrington. you can read about it and go out just before dawn and kick it around for yourself, your star maps awaits right here. I decided to make a video, was feeling really great after some pre-dawn winter sky observing. Click right  here to check out the asterism.

The photo above is exactly  the  pre-dawn sky I was observing  when I can still see the great nebula, pleiades and surrounding goodies. I really enjoyed the spectacular Sirius, just so spectacular that star is. Grab a scope or binoculars and go catch a glimpse of it. And Jupiter and it's moons were a  visual treat.

"I discovered the term the soccer ball cluster from Phil Harrington's  Binocular Universe" is what I was going to say when my batteries died. Then I decided to show you my skies I observe and my observing space.

I call my observatory Summer Moon Stargazing observatory after an amazing night I had in 2003. No worries, my telescopes were cleaned up and everything that was on it was put away. Actually my whole back porch got cleaned, built up some energy being excited  that the winter skies are around. The big dipper was out too!   I also caught some galaxies in my scope while dabbling among the dipper!

I SAW THE I.S.S LAST NIGHT

I was somewhere out there in my binoculars. and I see some spacecraft and I yelled (yes loud) woaaah look! wooow it's the fuckin international space station!!!!!

WOOOOOWWW! that was awesome! I started to tear up! wow so amazing! I had to get the excitement out so I did a free thing of running to grass and plopped down and just layed there whispering "holy asteroid! the international space station! wow that was awesome wow!". And rolling like an idiot, how can you contain that??!! 


Then sophy and spirit came over and was jumping on me. Accidently wound up my dogs!   What an awesome moment, wow!!



CANNOT WAIT TO GET OUT THERE TONIGHT, MY AWESOME NIGHT SKY LIFE IS BACK!