Posts Made By: Kevin Brennan

Not the greatest seeeing but better than what I usually get. Naked eye to me with baader filter in front of my face. Huge sunspot group!

This was single shot today from my D70 at prime focus of my 5" f8. Haven't a clue how to tease detail out of these things. Just auto color adjusted which seemed to take away the blue cast, and contrast stretched.

Clear skies,
Kevin
http://astronomy.darkhorizons.org

alpine tree from recent hike.

Kevin
http://pbase.com/kevinbr

Thats what they call it anyway. My run at a pano of this spot from a recent hike.

clear skies,
Kevin

http://pbase.com/kevinbr

Couple questions for the group,

Curious what you folks understand is the standard for naked eye limiting magnitude specifically whether it is direct vision or averted vision. The way I see it, is if you see the stars, you see the stars. I usually pick a constellation I have not done for awhile, and look for every star I can see around the main asterism, and then sketch them out looking them up later to learn how deep I was seeing.

Second,

does anybody have a good idea what the difference between their direct vision/averted vision limit is?

I had a decent nite tonite, and I guess my skies are not as bad as I thought they had become with nearby LP. I note stars to mag 5.6 in Ursa Minor. I could just barely make out the mag 5 star in the bowl with direct vision but I have some floaters these days that tend to be in my direct line of vision. I could see the haze of the milky way, but not the dust lane as I once could. Also have been able to make out M13 in years past. Although the air is just not as dry as it was say 6 or so years ago in the NE. Not as dark as Stellafane as a benchmark that folks might be familiar with especially at the horizon. I cannot see M33 naked eye as I have there.

Regards,
Kevin

I found this surfing. Stunning capture. I thought folks would be interested in seeing it.

http://www.astrosurf.com/legault/iss_atlantis_transit.html

Kevin

Anybody know if you can bake and reuse silica gel or are they a one time thing. I got a couple larger bags of this stuff that came with one thing or another and could use them in my scope case and ep case if they can be dehydrated.

Is there another source for a dessicant such as this or one that can be baked?

Kevin

There is a very timely and updated presentation of the latest Cassini observations of Saturn's rings in Feb S&T. I find it interesting that there are multiple high resolution images and reports of historical observations but no mention of an "Encke minima". I have been an avid observer for quite a number of years, and have always been baffled by notes or comments on ring observations. Folks have shot pictures of the Encke or claimed to have made observations only to be told that they have NOT and only observed the "minima". I would think that if one were to believe hints or evidence at the ansai of the division were actually the minima that higher resolution Earth based images would easily capture it.

Now I have also heard that it is all nomenclature and that folks that speak of the minima are referring to the encke division rather than the division at the extreme of the ring system better known as the keeler gap. But the keeler gap cannot be imaged or viewed by any earth based means. Only by cassini type imaging.

So what is this the latest opinions of this feature or observation that is supposed to be seen before the encke division can be hoped for? I wish I knew as I have seen a couple times the same feature I see photographed but have searched in vain for the "minima". Is it a small (as in ameteur)scope phenomina or illusion or a physical feature?

Kevin

I see the interest and excitement about a potential impact on Mars in January.

I was wondering if anybody could explane the curiosities in the predictions of it and 2004 MN4 Apophis. For WD5, it will pass only 50,000 km from and Mars and is said to have a 1:75 chance of impacting and "closing that gap daily". Apophis will pass within 35,000km and has a remote 1:45,000 chance. Any speculation on the wide discrepencies in these predictions? I assume it might be because the orbit for WD5 is less precise than that of MN4?

Regards,
Kevin

What is the cheapest (perhaps freeware) to stack some digitized film images for further processing? I have a handful of images that I have hours worth of well tracked and exposed data but have actually only processed one of the subs for each as I don't know how to do it.

I make the assumption here that the preferred way to process these are to register/stack these, then process with PS. I have the latter, but nothing else except AIP, CCDSOFT.

Regards,
Kevin

A couple questions from a long term "newbie". I have some images that I have taken with my DSLR (D70) both lunar, and deepsky but have only have the general knowledge to process one of the subs.

What is the cheapest (perhaps freeware) to stack a bunch of these. I assume a possible workflow would be to align/stack, then process in PS? Being a beginner, I recorded these as full rez JPEGs.

Regards,
Kevin