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Mars - 10/30/2005 07:30 UTC -- A little over 4 hours after Mars was at it's closest it will be to Earth for the next dozen years [approx. 0.46 AU (69 million km], I was able to grab some images. It hasn't been optimal for star/planet watching, but we got some clear, if hazy and windy, skies on the special night. Luckily, Mars was showing us the face where a dust storm has been brewing for a while. Click on the big image for an annotated version that points out the storm.

Both images are composites of images taken through red (23A) and blue (80A) filters using the R(G)B technique. The second image was sampled at 2x.

Taken with a Philips Vesta Pro 690K webcam. The telescope used was a Meade LX-90 (8" SCT, f/10). Pictures were captured and stacked using K3CCDTools and Registax 3. Further processing done with Paint Shop Pro 8.1

13 Day Moon

Feb 22, 2005 04:04-06:00 UTC -- I now have 22 moon phases for my MoonPhases site. I've also added this moon phase to my MoonPaper wallpaper / screen saver application.

The image was created by stitching together 50 images using Paintshop Pro 8.1. Each image was created by capturing AVIs with a Philips Vesta 690k and using K3CCDTools. I preprocessed each image using Registax 3, stacking up to 100 frames. The telescope used was a Meade LX-90 (8" SCT, f/10).

19 day moon

12/31/2004 -- I've been wanting to replace the 19 day moon I've had since Aug 2002 for quite a while. The terminus just wasn't very good. It looked like the morning of New Years Eve would be a good chance, but the evening of the 30th it started clouding up. I set my alarm for 3:30am anyway and found the sky crystal clear. Now I had to rush around and set up my scope, etc... since I hadn't wanted to put it out in the weather. This is never a good thing to do at 3:30am in the morning. It has taken me a while to process the image, but it was worth it. The terminus on this shot came out really nice. To see more moon images, goto my MoonPhases page.

The image was created by stitching together 40 images using Paintshop Pro 8.1. Each image was created by capturing AVIs with a Philips Vesta 690k and using K3CCDTools. I preprocessed each image using Registax 3, stacking about 100 frames. The telescope used was a Meade LX-90 (8" SCT, f/10).

In an attempt to start putting more of my images up on the web, I've started this blog. I had been hand creating a blog from about 2001 to 2003, but didn't keep it up. I've transfered all of those posts to this blog and plan on back filling to create a chronology of my pictures. After that, I will look into a new design for displaying my images by category.

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I reprocessed a couple of images from a previous post. The first image is a 3D image (anaglyph). You will need a pair of red/blue 3D glasses. The second image was reprocessed by resampling at 2x to try to pull out more features.

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Another attempt at imaging Saturn. Unfortunately, it was a bit hazy and I still couldn't get much detail out of it.

Taken with a Philips Vesta Pro 690K webcam. I unscrewed the lens and mounted a The Universal WebCam Adapter so that it fits into a 1.25" eyepiece socket. The telescope used was a Meade LX-90 (8" SCT, f/10). Pictures were captured and stacked using K3CCDTools or Registax. Further processing done with Paint Shop Pro 7