Fireball!
The all sky camera caught this really bright meteor this morning at 2:44. Wish I had been up!
Balsam skies
Conjunction
Last week, Venus, Jupiter and a crescent moon got up close in the evening sky. This week the moon left the pair and let Venus and Jupiter snuggle in private. These were all taken with a standard Canon DLSR on a tripod and telephoto lens. On the cropped image of Jupiter you can see all …
Closeup of Chinese Balloon
Ok, this was a wild ride this morning. After taking a few shots with the Canon and telephoto (where I forgot to zoom out!), I ran up to the observatory and attempted to point the new scope at the balloon. Mind you I have not actually taking a photo with it yet and had not …
Chinese Balloon!
Based on the forecasted track last night it was headed for Asheville and then to the South Carolina coast. I had doubts we would be able to see it but when walking Lexi this morning I happened to look up and there it was! Its pretty small even in a telephoto but I managed to …
Comet tails!
Finally! After all the bad weather this past week the skies opened up on Friday and I was able to capture a few hours of images of comet 2022 E3 (ZTF). Comets get cumbersome, long names but the media has called it the “green comet” which it is in long exposures. Astrophotography is an involved …
Comet ZTF
Here we go again – another new comet that “might” brighten to just barely naked eye visibility – maybe. The brightness of comets is notoriously hard to predict since as they near the sun some of their mass will boil away from the intense solar heat. Comets are bundles of ice and rock left over …
Eclipse sort of
Unfortunately the weather and trees made it very difficult to get any good photos last night. This time of year the ecliptic (the path the moon and planets appear to travel) is very low in the south where spring leaves blocked most of the view from Dogstar Observatory. The few photos I did manage to …
Total lunar eclipse Sunday
If the weather cooperates, head out around 10:30 PM Sunday to see a total lunar eclipse. The total phase begins just before midnight and lasts for over an hour. Check this link for complete details. Photo below is from January 21st, 2019 when it was -4 degrees!
Planetary conjunction in the dawn sky
Check out the action in the pre-dawn sky this week as Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Saturn get cozy. A visual conjunction happend fairly often and just means that the planets appear to be close together even though they are millions of miles apart. On May 1st, Jupiter and Venus will be so close as to …