Posts Made By: Timothy Iafolla

Tom, this is a great shot. I've never seen the witch look so much like a witch before! The color balance is really lovely, and almost spooky. Nicely done.

Tim Iafolla

Wes, you continue to raise the bar in resolution and tonal range.

Every now and them I measure your images to see what kind of resolution you are really getting here, and this one is the best ever.

See the prominent craterlet on the flat floor of Schiller just to the left of center? That is 2.4km in diameter, and subtends 1.3 arc seconds. The smallest features on the crater floor are on the order of 300 to 400 meters across and subtend about 0.25 arc sec. So you are at the point of being able to see a football stadium on the moon!

This is roughly twice as good as what you were getting last year in your best images.

Pretty soon you'll be able to call the coin toss from your backyard. You and Carl Zambuto are to be congratulated.

Tim Iafolla

Zack,

Great to have you here...I really enjoy your reports and sketches. You have much more discipline than I did at 13 (or now!). Sketching requires *observing*, not just looking. If you ever try astrophotography this expertise will give you a huge head start.

Nicely done.

Tim Iafolla

Johannes,

Good image scale and smooth, natural processing.

When that better night comes along, I think you can get away with f/40. I'll be looking for that one!

Tim Iafolla

Mike,

I always admire the natural look of your images...like bare eyes through an excellent telescope, or looking out a spacecraft window. They have none of the digitally enhanced look that some images have.

When you get a chance can you give us a quick rundown of your process steps and settings? Thanks,

Tim Iafolla

Great detail, esp. for a 7", and I really like your processing. It doesn't have that "digitized" look.

Tim Iafolla

Well, if your definition of apochromatic is "all colors coming to focus at the same point", then I guess...
I might feel differently if I had paid $1000 per inch for a TMB

Tim Iafolla

I sae it too, and agree with you about its lack of "greatness". However it threw out some interesting perspectives. The Christian crusaders took on the role of today's Muslim fundamentalists, ready to abandon logic and humanity, and just strap on the explosives and to hell with everybody.

The Muslims were portrayed as pragmatic, reasonable, and more morally "advanced". I have no idea what the historical truth is, though the various accounts of the Crusades certainly support this view.

Also, the Muslims were coming off of the height of their civilization, which in the period around 1000AD was the most scientifically and medically advanced, and morally enlightened the world had ever seen. The Christians were coming out of the Dark Ages, and were doing their best to tear down Muslim civilization in the name of Christianity. It took Western civilization 500 years to catch up to what the Muslims had achieved, earlier destroyed by the West. And the Muslim world view is still xenophobic because of it.

Tim Iafolla

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,...."

Tim Iafolla

David,

I look at the jet stream map before every outing:

http://www.wunderground.com/US/Region/US/2xJetStream.html

I think your conditions in Maine are similar to mine here in Maryland and the rest of the Northeast. The jet stream is overhead about 90% of the time, and high-mag viewing suffers. Typically I get a total of maybe 30 seconds of WOW-type viewing (in 2 or 3 second pieces) out of every hour.

The jet stream map, combined with the Clear Sky Clock, is helpful for planning: If a green or yellow section of the JS is overhead I don't even try lunar or planetary viewing; I stick to DSO's. If it's brown then I can expect better conditions and plan for L & P viewing. A really stable "Florida-type" night only happens once or twice a year (usually in the summer combined with hazy skies).

I have a question also: what are the general seeing conditions on the west coast of the US? I'm looking at some beach property in southern Washington state, and have hopes that maybe the atmosphere will be nice and laminar coming off the ocean, like western Florida. Am I right?

Thanks,

Tim Iafolla