Saturday night (12/22/07) presented a nice view of the nearly full Moon with Mars just under it inside of a cool Moon Ring.
	This is comet Machholt as it was passing near the Pleiades on January 9th, 2004.  We had a clear night so I packed up the scope and camera and went to the George Observatory to get some shots of it and participate in the Saturday night star party.  This is a 2 minute shot with my Canon 10D and Canon 70-200 MM lens at F/3.5.  I had to use the Canon lens since I forgot my Canon T ring adapter at home....  CLICK HERE for a larger version.
	Comet Machholz on 12-10-2004.  Notice that I put the Field Flatner in now and the star field is much nicer.
	Comet Machholtz
	The "Day Star" taken with a Sky 90, Coronado 90, and Canon 10D.  250th second exposure.  December 8th 2004.
	This is the Moon occulting Jupiter on December 7th, 2004.  Here in Ft. Davis, by the time that it came up high enough to see above the horizon, Jupiter was already touching the Moon.  Notice the blades of grass on the Moon.  I said that it was low...  All shot at prime focus on the FCT-150 at F/7 with the Canon 10D.  Exposures were from 4 seconds to 1/30th of a second at ASA 100.
	Going in...
	Almost gone.
	Just coming out.
	Jupiter moons showing.
	Pretty well clear now.
	Last shot.
	This is Comet Machholz taken from Ft. Davis on December 6th at about midnight with my FCT-150 at F/7 using the Canon 10D at prime focus.  Note the tail going off to the upper left as well as a bright area above it to the right.  This is a 5 minute shot.
	I put together several of the shot through out the night into a single image to show the various stages of the Lunar Eclipse.
	This is the eclipsed Moon around 10:00 PM on 10/27/04.  Taken with my FCT-150 @ F/7 with the Canon 10D at prime focus.  More details and shots to come.
	Here is the Moon about the same time behind thin clouds with an airplane passing in front of it.
	This is Comet Linear 2002 T7 currently in Perseus.  Taken on 11/24/03 with the FCT-150 @ F/5.  I took 15 one minute images that I will make into an animation to show it's progress through the star cluster ( NGC-1342 ) that it is traveling through.  I also have color on this one that I will add later.
Comet T7 Animation	Click on the link to the left to see a neat animation of Comet 2002 T7 passing through NGC-1342 Star Cluster.  ( 255K )  This animation covers 2 1/2 hours of time.  It is composed of 25 one minute images taken 5 minutes apart.
	This is Comet 2P/Encke currently in Aquila.  Taken on 11/24/03 with the FCT-150 @ F/5.  I took 15 one minute images that I will make into an animation to show how this little puppy is trucking across the sky.
Encke Animation	Click on the link to the left to see an animation of Comet Encke trucking across the sky.  ( 290K )  This animation covers 15 minutes of time.
Jupiter and Moons Animation	This is an animation (630K) of Jupiter with Europa coming from the left, casting a shadow, and crossing Jupiter.  Then comes Io from the left and chasing Europa across the planet.  You can see how poor focus, good, and bad seeing affects the evening of captures.  This took about 4 hours to capture on 2-26-04.
	This is Jupiter that I shot with the webcam and the Mewlon at F/12 on 2-26-04.  Notice Io to the left and Europa and it's shadow on the right side.  I'll have more processed later.  It was a fine transit of the two moons.
	This is shot at F/24 with a 2X barlow.  Notice now that Io is on the left side of the planet with it's shadow and Europa has just cleared the right side of Jupiter.
	I was playing with the Sky 90 last night (2-2-04) and shot this with the ST-10 while focusing for the next shot.
	This is a shot of Saturn that I took last night (12-20-03) while at "Late Arrival" at the George Observatory with a group of FBAC buddies.  I used the Philips Web cam on the Mewlon at F/24 using a 2X barlow.
	This is another shot of Saturn that I took last night (12-20-03) while at "Late Arrival" at the George Observatory.  I used the Philips Web cam on the Mewlon at F/48 using a 4X barlow.
	The clouds finally broke so I could get another shot of good ol Mars again.  Notice the dust storm between the South Polar Ice cap (top) and Syrtis Major in the Hellas Basin.  Taken on October 15th, 2003 with my Mewlon 300 at F/24 with the TouCam.
	Well football was on today so I had to do something while Dolly monopolized the TV.  Here is the Sun with some pretty cool sun spots.  Taken Sunday 9-28-03 with the FCT-150 and my Sony 707 digital camera.
	This is the same info as above but zoomed in a little more on the sun spots.
	Here is a Mars shot that I wanted that has the "Eye of Mars".  Taken on 9-28-03 with the FCT-150 at F/28 and Toucam.  I've noticed that the South Polar Ice Cap is "lopsided".  2 weeks ago, you couldn't see nearly this much of it when the other side of Mars was facing us.
	Here is a Mars shot that I wanted that has the "Eye of Mars".  Taken on 9-28-03 with the FCT-150 at F/28 and Toucam.  I've noticed that the South Polar Ice Cap is "lopsided".  2 weeks ago, you couldn't see nearly this much of it when the other side of Mars was facing us.
	This is a shot of Mars that I took with the Toucam and Mewlon while in New Mexico on vacation on September 1st, 2003.  The conditions were very poor due to moisture and clouds.  This is their 'monsoon season' there.  The area was really terrific for astronomy and incredibly beautiful to visit or live.
	This was taken on Sunday morning about 2 AM on 8-17-03 from the HAS Columbus observatory site.  Notice the clouds at the 9 o'clock position over Olympus Mons and the other volcanoes below it.  Click Here for side by side comparison with Mars Previewer II.  This is one of many shots that I took with the Mewlon 300 at F/24.  We had a wonderful "Mars Party" where we enjoyed 'faint fuzzies' til the Moon came up.  Then I switched over to taking pictures of and looking at Mars with both my Mewlon and FCT-150 side by side for comparisons.   We also observed both moons of Mars with an occulting eyepiece.  Quite an evening...
	Here is Mars taken about an hour earlier than the one above but this one was taken with the Mewlon 300 at F/48 by using a 4X barlow with the Toucam.
	the FCT-150 and Mewlon 300 were set up at the HAS Columbus site for the August Mars party.  On this night, the refractor has the most pleasing image of Mars but the Mewlon had a larger image scale and showed a tad more detail on the surface.
	This shot was taken on August 1st at 4 AM local time from my back yard with the Mewlon 300 and a 2 X barlow with the webcam.  It is sure getting bigger!!!
	I took this image on 7/30/03 at 5:30 AM with the FCT-150 refractor to see how it compared with the Mewlon images.
	Ok, this one is in the 640 X 480 (hi-res mode) of the Toucam.  Also, I dropped from the 4X barlow to a 2X barlow (F48 to F24) to hide some of the effects of the seeing.  This image was taken on July 27th, 2003 at 5 AM from my house with the same equipment as described below.  Note the difference in features on each shot.
	This was taken on 7/13/03 at 4:30am using the same setup as described below.  The side with Sirtis Major is definitely more interesting.
	On Saturday night / Sunday morning, I got up at 4 am to observe and take pictures of Mars.  Visually it was very nice with lots of detail apparent.  I am just starting to use a Phillips Toucam Pro to aquire planetary images.  This is a whole new field for me but I plan to try it several times before the closest approach on August 27th.  This image was shot with a 4X Big Barlow in line making the Mewlon F/48.  The seeing was extremely fast that morning as the weather was changing.  Hopefully better ones are to come...
	Every so often the seeing is really superb at my house.  Tonight was one of those nights.  Many features of Jupiter's belts were easily apparent.  This is a quick snapshot of it with the Sony digital camera.  The seeing was so good that the Enke division on Saturn was easily noted on the ends of the rings.  I often have good seeing at home, but tonight was exceptional.  It is ironic that I just returned from a week in the Hill Country observing and never had a night even close to this good.
	Ok, this is Comet C2002v1 Neat.  Click HERE for my first attempt at an animation.  It is a 700K file but it is pretty neat (pardon the pun).  I'll work on aligning the images better later...
	This is the Moon and Venus separated by less than 2 degrees.  Shot from my house on 5/14/02.
	Again
	Again
	Again
	Here are the 5 planets shot with my Sony digital camera (the film camera messed up....)  It is a 30 second shot which was dark extracted by the camera.
	Here is the same shot but with labels.
	The hill is Arabella with Mars and Venus in the middle and Saturn about to set.
	Here is a similar shot with Jupiter in the view.
	Here I re-did Comet IZ by stacking all the good images on the comet head instead of the stars.  The result is much more comet tail detail.
	This is comet Ikeya Zhang taken at Fort McKavitt on March 16th, 2002 with a Tak FSQ-106 and ST-8E.  It is a 2 minute shot. The tail extends beyond the frame which is 1 hour and 47 minutes from corner to corner.
	This was taken on my Tak FCT-150 @ F/7 with a ST-8E on March 15th, 2002.  It is a 2 minute shot. The frame is 54 minutes from corner to corner.
	This was taken on March 15th from Fort Mckavitt with my FSQ and 2X barlow .  Nice sun spots.  We had the FBAC Solaris Scope there admiring the Solar Flars also.  Quite beautiful...
	Moon & Jupiter near miss (2/22/02).  Well I got my negatives back from the 1 hour photo lab and scanned a couple in.  Notice the moons of Jupiter show up nicely.  35mm Nikon, prime focus, ASA 100 film, 125th/sec, on my FCT-150 @ F/7.
	This is 8 shots of Saturn coming out from behind the Moon at 7pm on 2/20/02.  Taken with FCT-150 at F/7 with my ST-8E CCD. I had to use a 2" Moon filter on the nose of the CCD and a H Alpha filter to dim the moon down.  I was watching the event in my 4" Tak FSQ while imaging the event.  Just Wonderful!!!!
	This is a series of CCD images that I took of the   Partial Solar Eclipse on December 14 from Brazos Bend State Park.  It was very cloudy, but I kept shooting anyway.
	This is an image of Saturn coming out from behind the moon on November 30, 2001 at 7:14 pm from the George Observatory.  Taken with my FCT-150 and the STV camera.  We watched Saturn go behind the Moon at 6:24 pm but didn't have the camera set up yet.
	This is another shot a few minutes later.  This ocultation will happen again on December 28th if you would like to watch it.
	This is Comet Linear C2000 WM1.  Taken on October 16th at Ft. Davis.  It is a stack of 5 2 minute shots through a clear filter with my Tak FCT-150 and ST-8E.
	This is a CCD image of the sun taken on 9/27/01 with a H-Alpha filter.  It is a 'combination' of two versions of the same image.  One is stretched minimal for the sun spots and the other is stretched a lot to bring out the flares.  I then cut the sun from one and overlayed it on the other in Photoshop.
	Lots of Sun spots on Ol Sol taken on 9/26/01 with my FSQ-106 at F/5.  The solar filter used is a Type 2+ Thousand Oaks.  Images with my ST-8E through a blue filter to dim it down.
	This shot is with a cheap digital camera through the eyepiece on the H-Alpha Solaris scope.  It shows some of the flares that were going on today (9/26/01).
	The Moon in H Alpha.  I was just playing around waiting for dark and decided to see what it would look like.  Shot at dusk on January 29th, 01 with my FSQ-106.
	Jupiter, FCT-150, 5x Barlow, RGB = .3:.3:.3 seconds - from Ft. Davis - Oct 26, 2000
	Saturn, FCT 150, Eyepiece Projection, F/?, one   0.5 second shot - George Observatory - Sept 16, 2000

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Last updated: 12/23/07