Astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson was on Bill Maher’s show a little over a week ago, and he had something to say about plans to slash NASA’s budget, including doing away with the James Webb Space Telescope. He seems to have struck a chord with the audience given their reaction. Here’s some of what he had…
My Personal Astronomy Blog Archives
Neil deGrasse Tyson Railing Against NASA Cutbacks
Monday, August 15th, 2011 at
5:08 pm
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The SETI Institute Is Back in Business!
Monday, August 15th, 2011 at
12:43 pm
Great news about SETI – the SETI Institute which was shut down in April will start operations again soon. The news comes from Alan Boyle’s Cosmic Log blog. The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) is a “Large Number of Small Dishes” (LNSD) array designed to be highly effective for “commensal†(simultaneous) surveys of conventional radio astronomy…
The “Sky This Month” Page Updated for June 2011
Thursday, June 2nd, 2011 at
1:09 pm
Astronomy Podcasts Page Working Again
Wednesday, May 25th, 2011 at
5:07 pm
The Astronomy Podcasts page stopped working a while back but I was only recently alerted to it. It’s up and running again now. Some of the Podcast sub-pages were also not working and these have been fixed too. It was down to a couple of bad plugins on the site. If you should come across…
Back From Vacation
Monday, May 9th, 2011 at
8:20 pm
I’m recently back from vacation down in Tenerife: I didn’t get any astronomy done aside from a quick look at the stars on the clear nights. I was too knackered from all the hiking and walking we did each day to do anything in the evenings! See that mountain in the photo above. That’s Mt….
Record the Light Pollution Levels Where You Live!
Thursday, March 31st, 2011 at
2:51 pm
Light pollution is the bane of amateur astronomers everywhere. The Globe at Night program is an international citizen-science campaign to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution by encouraging everyone everywhere to measure local levels of night sky brightness and contribute observations online to a world map. So here’s your opportunity to give…
Testing Tracking With the LVI Smartguider – First Astrophotos
Saturday, October 23rd, 2010 at
3:31 pm
A few weeks back, I did a test run with the LVI Smartguider. I mounted the LVI in the eyepiece holder of the 80mm refractor that I’m using a guide scope. This is mounted on my Vixen 8″ reflector and the whole setup is driven by an EQ6 mount. I attached my Canon 350D to…
The LVI Smartguider Arrived!
Saturday, May 1st, 2010 at
2:21 am
It took 4 days for the LVI Smartguider to make its way from Germany to me in Ireland (it arrived on Apr. 29, 2010). All the components are packed into a carry-case that’s not much bigger than an A5 sheet of paper. Here’s what’s in the box: As luck would have it, the weather has…
I Decided to Buy an LVI Smartguider
Sunday, April 25th, 2010 at
2:02 am
A few nights ago saw 2nd light using the EQ6. For some reason , I couldn’t get a 3-star alignment. The mount is permanently set up in the observatory and polar aligned, so a bad equipment set up isn’t the problem. I sufficed with a 2-star alignment. But this time I attached the Canon 350D…
First Light for EQ6
Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at
2:10 pm
After months of inactivity, I finally got around to plugging the SynScan hand controller into the EQ6 and powering everything up. No bangs, flashes or fizzles with trails of wispy smoke! Everything worked. I used to use a car battery to power my old Skysensor 2000/GP DX mount but I bought an Observatory Power Supply…
Frozen Britain and Not So Frozen Ireland
Friday, January 8th, 2010 at
5:11 pm
This striking image taken by NASA’s Terra satellite on 7 January shows the UK deep in the clutches of the current cold snap. While the UK is completely white, Ireland, at least the half you can is still green. On the ground it’s a different story. Dublin has been affected by the snow for the…
The Sun Now (Visible light) |
The Sun Now (H-Alpha light) |
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Aurora Oval (Northern Hemisphere) |
Aurora Oval (Southern Hemisphere) |
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