Desktop Planetarium Software

I found a great site if you need a desktop planetarium!

Its free and works pretty nicely. I love the zoom in and out features.

I will be testing it out over the next few nights to see how it compares to the night sky! Check it out!!

http://www.stellarium.org/

Moon and Venus

Well the storm was a complete joke, other that some light snow and a few spots East and South of here it was a overblown hype storm. I am thankful they are wrong, but I got a terrible night sleep because I assumed it was going to be terrible from all of the weather reports. Oh well here's hoping we have a great weekend now so I can get out and use the scopes! From mid-March to just a week or so ago we had many, and I mean many clear nights and I probably used the scope about 12 times and there were about 4-5 more nights I could not use it because I had other things happening. I am going to buy a handwritten journal to keep my observations. I know old school right? I might decide to take the written format of that book and create a web page to enter the same details but I have to find the right book to copy.

Today the Crescent Moon and Venus are close together in the sky.

I love this site for Astronomy help!
Its called Cloudy Nights - www.cloudynights.com

I have been doing some side work for a couple offices to keep my tech skills sharp but it feels like it should be Thursday when its only Tuesday. Funny how hard work makes you feel that way!

Well enjoy the evening!

Storm is coming!!!

I know, its been a few weeks! Jeesh! It has been busy!

I am now coaching a U12 House league with my two son's on the team, a total of 11 kids. I am happy that I am helping out, and love playing with my kids! This will be my 6th season as a coach and I have enjoyed every year. Our first game is next Saturday and I want to have a practice tomorrow, but they are calling for a crazy amount of snow overnight and into tomorrow!

I will update you on the season of course as it goes along. Last season we went 9-0 as a team, but each year the teams change, so we will see what happens with this years group!

I have popped the scopes out a few times and even brought out my light bucket - Zhumell 10inch Dobsonian. It is great and I have spent a lot of time using the Meade LX-125 and its AutoStar computer. 

Sometimes on galaxies when I look through the Meade a Galaxy or Nebula is not clear but star hopping with the Zhumell brings the view of the object much clearer and brighter. A drawback of the Zhumell is it is big and heavy and its difficult to maneuver. It takes some getting used to but the views are dramatic and it helps to have a second scope to just point at stuff while the other scope hones in on another object. 

I have upgraded my equipment since last time, adding a Orion Bino Viewer, we two sets of eye pieces. I hear that this makes objects come in 3D and allows for easier observation of details. 

Also an EZ Focus cable on the ETX-125 for easier focusing, and an Electronic Eye piece so I can project to a computer Monitor or TV so people can watch what I am focusing on. And finally a camera adapter that was much cheaper that to buy a $300-$3000 CCD Camera. It was $35 and it allows me to mount my camera to the scope and use the eyepiece as opposed to just the tube and mirrors. 

All of this is due this week and I will update the blog when I get some images going and I will review the BinoViewer too!

Let's hope for a nice snow day and then some clear nights after that! :) 

Astrophotography

I have been looking for a way to photograph what I am seeing in my telescopes.

I have been taking photos with my iPhone by holding my phone up and lining up the camera but its a pain and it only works on the moon and Sun.

They came out with this adapter for the iPhone and its expensive and I doubt that it will work as the camera isn't made for low light situations which is what you get out of a telescope.

I have tried a webcam from my laptop and had similar results like my iPhone, it has to be held perfectly and its tough to line up and then snap a picture or video.

There is a simple USB Camera that fits in the eyepiece that has low reviews and its the same price as the iPhone adapter - $59 but as I said it has very poor reviews. Here is the eyepiece I am speaking about.

Meade used to make a DSI (Deep Space Imager) camera but no longer does but there were many sold and I have seen some on Ebay and other sites that sell telescope accessories. What I really need is a CCD (Charged Couped Device which is meant for Astrophotography, but these can cost over $400 - $3000+ dollars! Yikes!!

Am I ready for that?? There are software packages that can take your images and overlay them as taking pictures isn't like your normal everyday pictures. You actually have to track your target, and do long exposures.  3 seconds to several minutes to gather as much light as possible. In order to do that you need and expensive camera and a tracking scope that actually stays with the object you are trying to capture.

I have more research to do but I plan on getting into it more in the future and will post as I come across some.

InfoTech BETA Awards and IAAP Speaking!! Busy!!!

What a busy week! I got to attend my first BETA Awards as a Board Member. What a great time and I met the other Peter Cimino of Lloyd's Taco Truck! What a nice guy! And then the following night I spoke in front of 65 IAAP members and explained Cloud Computing and Social Media 101. It was well received and I am glad I got the opportunity. Tonight I got out the scopes and checked out M81, NGC2841 and M101 the Pinwheel Galaxy. They were quite impressive in my little scope and I checked out the Moon and Jupiter, Mars and Venus. Very clear out but the full moon is eating up a lot of the stars so it makes it a little harder to see. Happy Easter/Passover!

My iPhone + Telescope + Moon = Awesome!

I took this beauty last night through my telesope. It was a cloudy late afternoon and then around 7:00 the clouds broke up but looked like they were going  to stay with partly cloudiness. I setup the scope right away because the moon was out and i could still see it through the clouds. It was light out and the cloudy haze made the moon look cool. Faded and somewhat distant. But as soon as the clouds broke, the Moon looked too bright almost to the eye!! So I popped a filter on to lesser the brightness and add some contrast and waited, because it was still to light out. I checked out Mars while I waited and its very small in my scope, but very orange / red-ish and to feint to photograph with my current setup. You can easily see dark spots on Mars but very hard to see. I need to break out my bigger scope for that but it takes a lot to move it! Anyway, finally around 8:30 it was dark enough and all clouds were gone. I put my iPhone up to the eyepeice and slowly moved till I was at the perfect angle and I could see the Moon and steadied the phone till I got this shot! I took another 4-5 but this one was the best.

I stayed out until 1:00 in the morning as the dew set in and everything was foggy. Looking at The Orion Nebula (M43) and several star clusers as well as M95 an elliptical / bar galaxy that had a recent discovery of a Supernova in the limb of one of its spiral arms. You must be patient and know the star charts and I love using the apps on the iPad. I woke up like a kid this morning excited to replay the details in my head of what I saw. 

I love Astronomy!!

TECH Work....

Tonight I started my Exchange 2010 upgrade at my office, well I started the move to Exchange 2010. I actually started over 2 weeks ago, with ordering Hardware and Software. About 10 days ago I got the server and Windows 2008 was installed, but then I got hit with a hardware issue with the RAID array and on top of that a drive went bad. Once that was cleared and nothing else cropped up, I moved forward today. All services are running and I can send / receive mail and I can use Outlook Anywhere and Active Sync so all seems great! I am moving all the other user mailboxes now but its going to take all night!

Sunday Morning!

Lately I have been more busy at work than ever. I know that is supposed to be a good thing, but I have been feeling pressure that I have not before. On top of that, I am still not sleeping well so I am feeling less with it as of late. I need to get better at prioritizing my day and really get on top of things. I have been working out 3 days a week and have been feeling better in that respect. 

Today we have religion school and then I have to go and look at a PC that has malware on it. 

We skated again for the 3rd week in a row yesterday night and I really enjoy doing it. We brought 3 kids with us so we had 8 skaters in all. We had a blast. 

Have a good Sunday! 

Sunday!

Great time skating yesterday! We skated for 2+ hours hardly taking any breaks! I must have burned 2000 calories!! Emma can now skate on her own and she saw a gymnastics friend who she traded phone numbers. So cute! Nick has really gotten better and Pete jams around and is getting more confident on skates. I also won us free passes to any free skate. They play a game that allows you to pick between 3 numbers (1,2,3) and someone rolls a dice with the numbers on it and I last 5 rounds and on the 5th round if your number is rolled you win! We were so excited!!! We then got home, showered and got ready and went to Church. After that we went to the Forestview on Transit and French and I had a Tuna Club sandwhich. It was great!! The kids and Krys split 20 wings. We went to Target and Wegmans to save a trip that we normally do on Sunday, and I gotta say shopping at 7:00 p.m. on a Saturday is much better than Sunday any time!

We have Church School this morning, and after that I need to relax because my hips and back are sore from all the skating. Krys is painting our master bathroom, she loves to paint, so its just me and the kids again doing something! The kids go back to school tomorrow as they have been off for break for the last week. I gotta make sure all their homework is done and they are ready to go!

Have a good Sunday!!!

Lazy Saturday morning!

Well, for once on a Saturday we have little to do. I got to sleep in until 8:00 a.m. but I had a rough time sleeping. Last night, Peter Jr. had Lacrosse practice until 11:00 p.m. out at Sahlen's so I usually can't fall asleep until after 1:00. It was broken sleep too, got up around 4:45. Oh well. That has been the way of sleeping more often lately.

Anyway I just am happy for a quiet Saturday. Listening to music and reading news articles. Cup of coffee on a snowy morning. They said there would be possible 4-8 inches but its looking more like 1-2 maybe 3. South towns will get more based on the way the wind is blowing across the lake. Oh yes, I am a weather buff! You can't help it, living east of a very large lake. It has great potential for different types of weather systems.

It currently is snowing heavier than it has but reviewing the radar shows that Weather Ground Erie County Radar its moving south.

We will be going skating at around 1:00 so it starts! Love roller skating!

Have a great day!