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Snow at my observatory in Southern California

perks713
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Not nearly as good as the previous photos in the thread but figured I'd add my first attempt at photographing the night sky about a year ago. Shutter was open a little long. It was middle of the winter and I was hanging out the window propping my $2500 camera on some books and the sill. I didn't know the house I was going to be staying at had a crows nest or whatever it would be called, didn't even think to bring a tripod with me, hopefully we'll stay there again.

upload_2021-11-12_13-25-52.png
 
tpatta
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Hoping to get a few pics of the eclipse tonight. Sadly the weather forecast at my house and up at my observatory are not looking great. Fingers crossed.
 
SpeedyPhill
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Interesting stuff... I documented technical details of telescopes & instruments in almost 200 professional astronomical observatories in 33 countries. Needless to say the most interesting observatories are in the Southern hemisphere 😉
Moreover I can boast I wore my Speedmaster while visiting all large NASA antennas of the Deep Space Network in Robledo de chavela - Spain, Goldstone CA USA and Tidbinbilla Australia.
I even walked on the surfaces of the 76 meter Lovell radio telescope at Jodrell Bank observatory in Goostrey near Manchester - UK and the world famous 64 meter diameter "dish" in Parkes New South Wales in Australia which received the first Apollo 11 TV signals
Photos or it didn't happen:
😁
.
theDish.jpg Parkes_MoonwatchUniverse.jpg
 
tpatta
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SpeedyPhill SpeedyPhill
Interesting stuff... I documented technical details of telescopes & instruments in almost 200 professional astronomical observatories in 33 countries. Needless to say the most interesting observatories are in the Southern hemisphere 😉
Moreover I can boast I wore my Speedmaster while visiting all large NASA antennas of the Deep Space Network in Robledo de chavela - Spain, Goldstone CA USA and Tidbinbilla Australia.
I even walked on the surfaces of the 76 meter Lovell radio telescope at Jodrell Bank observatory in Goostrey near Manchester - UK and the world famous 64 meter diameter "dish" in Parkes New South Wales in Australia which received the first Apollo 11 TV signals
Photos or it didn't happen:
😁
.
theDish.jpg Parkes_MoonwatchUniverse.jpg
I would love to have a sit down with you. If you are ever in Los Angeles, dinner and drinks on me.
 
SpeedyPhill
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In fact some of us are looking up... all over the world,... NEO observations have been computerized 😉
Brian Marsden , Korado Korlevic , David Levy , Jaume Nomen , Robert McNaught , Tamara Smirnova , Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker , among others come to mind ... hashtag astronomers & comet-hunters
.
 
ahsposo
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And on it's way, the new James Webb Space Telescope to L2

JWSTcrop1024.gif

From APOD 12/31/2021
 
tpatta
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SpeedyPhill SpeedyPhill
In fact some of us are looking up... all over the world,... NEO observations have been computerized 😉
Brian Marsden , Korado Korlevic , David Levy , Jaume Nomen , Robert McNaught , Tamara Smirnova , Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker , among others come to mind ... hashtag astronomers & comet-hunters
.
Let's hope it's a little more realistic than some of the previous films regrading the "end". 😁
Also, here is a little better shot of Hale-Bopp.........
Hale-Bopp.jpg

Happy New Year everyone.
 
SpeedyPhill
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the last naked eye comet I photographed was C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) in July 2020
. hard-to-spot in lower right far beyond the chimney
C2020F3_NeoWise.jpg
 
tpatta
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Nothing major but snow has returned to the observatory.
18DA396D-E78C-465D-AB6D-DD769AAACD84.jpeg
 
Walrus
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@tpatta if you don’t mind me asking there was a thread started about some Tesla stuff and it got into mentioning the low earth orbit starlink satellites were troubling astronomers. I read that musk listened and started painting them black but they were building up too much heat so they actually changed the design of the solar panels so they would not reflect light directly back at earth. Have you experienced an issue with this and have you noticed the changes made, I’m not even 100% sure if and what changes have been made and which are still in design. Is this a major issue with you and your brethren. And don’t forgot you said if I’m ever in the area I can stop by for a beer and some universal gazing (don’t worry I’ll never show up but the offer was cool)
 
tpatta
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@Walrus The impact of Elon's Starlink system has been minimal for photographic purposes and non existent for visual for me. Starlink has changed the orbital parameters and angular position to minimize reflection of sunlight. This is a far cry from the Iridium system launched in the mid 90's. Those bad boys were so bright they ruined many a fine photo. Prior to any astrophotography back then I had to calculate the position of the satellites and make sure they would not enter the field of view with the shutter open. I wasn't always completely accurate 🙁. The seachange came when I switched from 35mm and 6x7 film, which required exposures of several hours, to digital. Instead of 2-3 hour single exposures I now take 20-30 exporsures in the 3-6 minute range and stack them all. Easy to toss out any shot with a sat. trail or airplane flying through the image. As a general comment the biggest problem to observing up there over the last 30 years has been the constantly expanding light pollution from the greater Los Angeles area. Even 80+ miles from downtown LA the skyglow has slowly taken out 20 degrees of horizon and shows no sign of slowing down. The positive for me is the northeast, north and west still have pretty dark skies.
And yes, beer is cold and waiting for you.
 
Walrus
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tpatta tpatta
@Walrus The impact of Elon's Starlink system has been minimal for photographic purposes and non existent for visual for me. Starlink has changed the orbital parameters and angular position to minimize reflection of sunlight. This is a far cry from the Iridium system launched in the mid 90's. Those bad boys were so bright they ruined many a fine photo. Prior to any astrophotography back then I had to calculate the position of the satellites and make sure they would not enter the field of view with the shutter open. I wasn't always completely accurate 🙁. The seachange came when I switched from 35mm and 6x7 film, which required exposures of several hours, to digital. Instead of 2-3 hour single exposures I now take 20-30 exporsures in the 3-6 minute range and stack them all. Easy to toss out any shot with a sat. trail or airplane flying through the image. As a general comment the biggest problem to observing up there over the last 30 years has been the constantly expanding light pollution from the greater Los Angeles area. Even 80+ miles from downtown LA the skyglow has slowly taken out 20 degrees of horizon and shows no sign of slowing down. The positive for me is the northeast, north and west still have pretty dark skies.
And yes, beer is cold and waiting for you.
Ah thank you that was a much more detailed and in-depth answer than I would have imagined. I don’t think I would have found your direct answer along with the comparisons on google, or at least explained in a way I could understand. I mean I did look into it and found musk took the time to meet with the astronomers who were complaining and worked on a fix.
I have also read each of his starlink satellites has a propulsion system on board so when they end there operational lifetime they can be controlled to burn up in the atmosphere to cut down on space junk. Very interesting to get the inside info from someone actually observing what’s going on and has “hands on” as there is still a lot of “starlink bad” news floating around and what the hell do I know all I have is binoculars.
 
tpatta
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Walrus Walrus
Ah thank you that was a much more detailed and in-depth answer than I would have imagined.
Sometimes I do run off at the mouth. 😁
 
Walrus
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tpatta tpatta
Sometimes I do run off at the mouth. 😁
I got you beat I am thing king of loquacious beings
 
tpatta
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Walrus Walrus
I got you beat I am thing king of loquacious beings
Wow, I think you are the only person I know who has used "loquacious" in a sentence. 👍👍
I understand. I have been told a can give a 25 minute presentation in only 2 hours.
Edited:
 
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