Category Archives: Astronomy

About a year ago, I announced on this blog that I had started designing and building an Albert Highe inspired 16″ F/4 dobsonian telescope. This project has now come to its conclusion as you can see in the photos below. … Continue reading →

Were present: George Feliz, Rogelio Bernal Andreo, Paul Duncan, Peter Natscher, Jim Molinari, Jeff Weiss and myself. The conditions were extremely pleasant: warm (temps in the 50s), dry, no wind. The transparency was good (NELM 6.2 in UMi) and the … Continue reading →

Attendance at this year’s CalStar was surprisingly low compared to last year. I setup in the “dark enforced area”, right next to Mark Johnston whom I must thank for helping me get out of a bad battery situation… The skies … Continue reading →

When I showed up at the entrance of the Hollister BLM access road, off of Little Panoche Rd, around 7pm, I saw Dr. Lee Hoglan, Craig Scull, Peter Nastcher, Tony Hurtado and Mark Johnston fiddling with the gate. Apparently, a … Continue reading →

GSSP 2010 turned out to be a terrific star party, and I would like to start this report by personally thanking our hosts, the Albaugh family, as well as all the volunteers who made this event such a great success! … Continue reading →

A few of us went to the D.A.R.C. observatory last night, including Robert Jardine (aka “Joe Bob”), Al Smith and his wife Annie, Al Howard, Eric Zbinden, Daniel Stefanescu, and of course Dr Lee Hoglan and Dr Bob Caton. Before … Continue reading →

I went to Lake San Antonio on Tuesday, May 11, in order to wrap up the Herschel 400 list, which I have been working on for almost a year and a half. I was missing 15 targets, all of them … Continue reading →

On Tuesday, April 6, I joined Marko, Rogelio, Hans Schulze and Paul Duncan at Dinosaur Point for a night of observing. Conditions were decent with fairly calm winds, average transparency and seeing, temps in the mid to low 40s and … Continue reading →

General Mark Wagner, Richard Navarrete, Steve Gottlieb, Peter Natscher, Rogelio Bernal Andreo and I met with our host, Kevin Ritschel, at his ranch in Willow Springs on Saturday, March 13, 2010. Conditions By sunset, the wind had subsided. The transparency … Continue reading →

Greg LaFlamme, George Feliz, Scott Baker, Rogelio Bernal Andreo, Al Howard and myself met up at Dinosaur Point last night. The transparency was just about average as predicted by the Clear Sky Clock. The seeing was quite soft early on, … Continue reading →