Sunday, August 13, 2006

Things Astronomical - July/August 2006

After months of uncooperative weather we're finally getting to do some astronomy. Here's what's been happening:

  • Sold the Nexstar 8 GPS in July and picked up a used Antares 127 mm (5") achromatic refractor and a new Orion Sirius equatorial mount.

  • The weekend of Aug 04 & 05 was fairly dark, which gave me an opportunity to give the new scope and mount a good shakedown run. The following weekend, on Aug 12, I managed to get a few nice photos of the moon using the new scope and Canon Digital Rebel.

  • Variable star Chi Cygni has reached record brightness of magnitude 3.8.

  • New software: Astroplanner

  • Hubble images the dimmest dwarf stars in globular cluster NGC-6397.

  • The Unplanetization of Pluto - My disjointed rant against the illegal, unjust, unilateral War on Pluto.
All this and more!: Epistolae Astronomicae.

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posted by Paul @ 4:24 PM