First off…

So let’s see, what have I got to cover today?

There’s the Quadrantids meteor shower peaking in a couple days (well, tomorrow night/Friday morning,) that should be visible for a few days on either side, so if the skies are clear, go for it. If it remains as clear read more

Happy Webbmas!

It’s the third anniversary of the launching of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST, or “Juiced” – well, probably not that last one,) and in that scant amount of time, the telescope has been making hay with the amount of useful data that it’s been downloading to us, even after being read more

I’m not ready for this

We’re once more into the nonsense blog trivia that would interest, oh, perhaps 1.29% of the population, but you did catch the ‘blog’ part, right? Good.

Today marks the 57th anniversary of the first flight of the Northrop HL-10 lifting body, and I’d intended to have a project done by now, but failed in that regard. So consider this a prelude for when it is done.

The HL-10 was read more

Nuh uh


My attempts to finagle a clear sky and/or some nice Geminids meteors failed, but the haze did produce a nice, wide lunar halo, which nonetheless took a much longer exposure to bring out than the moon required, so the moon got blown out in the middle. This is at 18mm and just barely got the halo in the frame – I could have gone wider with another lens, but didn’t deem read more

It just might work

Hmmm, Friday the 13th. The Geminids meteor shower peaks tonight. Now, my luck with meteor showers is uniformly bad, so much so that it’s a standing joke among, well, me, so I now consider this a regular state of affairs.

So, will the bad luck actually result in changing this? If I count on not seeing a damn thing, will the mystical daemons that assault people with trivial annoyances read more

Like, Wow!, man!

This one popped up several weeks ago, when I was too busy to do it justice, so I set it aside for when I had plenty of time to write it up properly, which appears to be now. There are a decent number of details and thus it will take some explaining, so get comfy as we set off on this journey.

There used to be a massive radio telescope at Ohio State University, dubbed the Big Ear, that monitored a read more

So much for that

A couple weeks back, I came across another photo of the International Space Station in front of the sun, and it renewed my interest in trying to obtain an image of this on my own, especially since I now have a working solar filter – I’d be fine with the moon, too. Thus began the research into how one got an accurate prediction for the passes as seen from one’s own location.

Here’s read more

Too much today

It’s been far too busy a day today, and while I have numerous photos to do something with, I have no energy nor motivation to do so. But we can’t miss Monster’s anniversay, so wish her a happy fifth from the day we brought her home from living in a parking lot.


If you want more details, you’ll have to use your internet savvy to find them – which shouldn’t read more

I didn’t know

I went out yesterday morning when it was finally clear to take a shot at the Perseids meteors, as well as the aurora if it bothered to show. Same ol’ same ol’ – I saw a couple of small and brief meteors, and captured the barest streaks in images, but not at all worth the effort on either count. It did not help that the humidity was high and cutting down some of the ‘seeing’ read more

I was a teenage sun

I had a small change I wanted to make to the solar filter holder that I’d created, and it required 3D printing a new part – so of course, the printer started printing very undependably and in a weird manner, and it took me no small amount of time to find it and fix it. Once I’d done so and finally got the new part printed and ready, the sun viewing conditions went to crap.

So finally, read more

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