Blog Posts
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Public Star Party at Galaxy Quest 2/18/2023
I attended the Central Maine Astronomical Society public star party at Galaxy Quest in Lincolnville. A large crowd (by our public star party standards) of a couple dozen people showed up. Jacob had his 18″ Obsession (like) dobsonian telescope rolled out of the observatory. Also was a Celestron 6″ dobsonian telescope, a smaller refractor, and…
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Public Star Party at DRA 1/21/2023
I attended the Central Maine Astronomical Society Star Party at Damariscotta River Association, now called Great Salt Bay Farm from around 7:15 until 9:30pm. A particularly cold night, though I had 3 layers of clothing on, I did not feel too cold. Conditions weren’t the best, a lot of moisture in the sky. Seeing was…
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2022 Maine State Star Party
This past weekend I attended the 2022 Maine State Star Party at Cobscook Bay State Park in Dennysville, Maine. I arrived late Friday afternoon. Weather was pretty bad, cloudy & misty which eventually turned to light rain so no observing was done. We were finally given access to camp and observe from the large field…
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So it begins.
I signed a contract last week with a local contractor to start construction of my backyard observatory. First step is having a simple gravel service road installed as well as trenching for electrical rough-in. I am planning to build a roll-off roof observatory, large enough to hold two piers and a small warming room. I…
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7/2 Star Party
Held a small public star party that only 2 friends showed up for. One of those rare summer nights in Maine with decent weather conditions. Minimal wind. Warm in the mid 60F. Only some passing clouds occasionally towards the north. Seeing was excellent; very little twinkle of the stars. I had my 10″ dob out…
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Comet Leonard
Early this morning around 3:30am I went outside and photographed C/2021 A1 (Leonard) from my driveway. I also looked at it through binoculars. Very faint fuzzy. Since I don’t have a tracking mount for my camera yet, I had to boost the ISO (ISO2000 @ 8 seconds, f/1.4 16mm) to get any appreciative detail of…
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Waining Crescent Moon
Woke up early and saw a nice Waining Crescent Moon before morning sunrise. A real treat. Photos taken with my Canon M50 mirrorless DSLR, stock 55-200mm zoom lens at 200mm @ f6.3, ISO6400, 1sec exposure.
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Early morning astrophotography from the driveway.
I woke up early this morning and went outside to cool morning with no breeze or clouds. Seeing was great. Took me a moment to get my bearings as the constellations were in different locations in the sky from when I usually observe (at night). Looked at Orion and Andromeda. Saw a couple of meteors…
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Website Updates
It was bugging me that I was incorrectly using slideshows instead of gallery for the photos that I’ve taken. I’ve added Gallery Lightbox plugin and updated the posts to use the lightbox instead of the slideshow. You can now click on photos and see a larger view, as well as see the caption. Looks much…
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9/11/2021 Observing Report
Not a bad night. A club member came over with some used eyepieces that he acquired. Tele Vue Nagler 31mm and a Nagler 9mm 1st gen with a bad coating. Compared the 31mm Nagler to an Explorer Scientific 30mm 82deg. I liked the Nagler better, as it had more eye relief. We looked at a…
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