Alvin Clark 4 inch refractor at emu observatory in a display room.

This is a 3G sketch version of the 3G photo.

It's in a cross eyed format for viewing.




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An inexpensive way to travel to Mars.

Want to see the planet Mars in 3d?

There is a website that NASA has that allows visitors to download photos from the mars rovers. Some of the photos are left right stereo pairs, taken with a stereo camera on the rovers. Spirit and Opportunity both had stereo cameras and have images sent back from their long mission on the surface of Mars.

I'll try to include a link to the site in another post.

I took the left right image and created this left right cross view image for my iPhone 3d viewer. The 3d camera app for iphone was used to created the left right stereo image below.

An iPhone and iPod can view 3d photos with the hasbro my 3d viewer.

Of course if you don't have the viewer you can use the cross eyed method to view this image on your monitor.








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The observatory will be open tonight.

We are hoping for partly cloudy skies.

We will be filming some clips for a Faac cable show early in the evening and will have a few special guests.

We are also looking forward to meeting a bunch of LPHS students that have checked out the new astronomy club forming there.

Professor Dave Cinabro from Wayne State University will be presenting a Meade Deep Space imaging camera to the school superintendent. At least that is what I've heard as being a part of the activities.

We hopefully will be viewing the moon and ore objects as the weather permits.


We have at least three or four astronomy club members arriving from the FAAC club and will have telescopes setup outside if all goes well.

I believe we may have a scout group and some members of Henry Ford Community college Astronomy club as well. There will be a lot of people present so if your an occasional visitor and used to a quiet time of observing, this will be much more busy, with less scope time, but more telescopes and people.

If your a Faac member and want to stop by bring a scope or binocular or just bring yourself, we will have plenty of equipment and people there for a fun time.

Greg


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Test

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Hfcc club visit more photos

Brian Kutcher brought two telescopes and set them up rather quickly.




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We haven't announced the observatory as being open due to construction

Amazingly more people have been showing up when we didn't announce the site as being open.

We've been out on some clear nights, but due to construction activities we haven't been announcing we'd be out there.

We've been experimenting trying to register the supernova on a camera photograph with m101, but had no luck in getting the photo to look good.

Part of the problem is sky glow and our location being in a very bright environment. We are in the city so there is a lot of sky glow.

We don't have the best astrophotography cameras, actually our Stellacam is a video camera which supposedly does it all, but it used video signals and really is a enhanced video camera. This limits it's quality of output and usefulness.

A blog reader asked me if he could come by and see the supernova. The short answer is you can stop by, but I don't think you'll see the supernova and m101 visually. The supernova would appear as one of a few stars if it's bright enough and we can locate it. We may locate it and see stars and part of the core of the galaxy and guess which faint star may be the supernova, but you probably won't know which one is the supernova while looking because you may not even see the core due to skyglow to figure out which star is the supernova. So if you looked at the sky right now with the c14 from the observatory you may see a field of stars and say I saw it, but you may not be able to tell which star was the actual supernova.

The supernova is getting more dim we believe because it may have been discovered later than scientists thought it was. It may not be getting brighter but fainter and the weather doesn't look promising for viewing.

If we are out we always welcome visitors. We are often out but are volunteers so we don't have set hours. We are usually out between 9pm and midnight on clear sky nights. Sometimes I go out there very late at night but I don't announce it because the sky clears and most people are already asleep. If we are out there we almost always welcome any visitor that stops by as long as they are over 18 or with a parent or guardian.


Here's a test process of an earlier shot of m42 I took some months back at HJRO. This is the core of the Orion Nebula. I played and adjusted the color curves of this image using a new app I downloaded on my iPad called "Filterstorm". This is a pretty fun iPad app and may not be as good as more advanced apps but is fun to use and play with and does a pretty good job on photos. It introduces some noise and doesn't have as powerful a noise filter as some desktop apps.



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Observatory will be left closed tonight, at least I won't be opening it up.

There will be no observing tonight due to clouds and a busy day for me tomorrow. If things change I'll put out an update. But I won't be opening up the observatory tonight.

Greg


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Quick single shot of the blue snowball nebula

Here's a photo, without any processing of the blue snowball nebula. This was taken by a member of the Ford Amateur Astronomy Club, Tim Campbell, using a Canon T1i.

Photo taken last Friday night through the c14 with a t mount adapter connection.



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I'm in florida getting some good stuff

Photos to appear later


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Daytona beach at night

I stayed a few nights at a motel at Daytona Beach.

I enjoyed walking at night down the beach. thanks to the excitement of being on a vacation, I kept staying up late and would wake up early each morning, excited to see a new day arrive. My schedule was very unstructured and for the most part not very deadline driven.

When others would ask me when are you returning to Michigan, I'd kind of pause and wonder how to answer them. I had no deadline date to return but there were some pressures to return.

One night, while walking on the beach back toward my motel I met a family of five. They were enjoying a walk near the water and had one flashlight. Thinking they might be able to use another person with a flashlight to spot washed up jellyfish, I walked closer and started talking with them. The father would chat and was at times shining his flashlight, looking for crabs which he would run out and catch. He'd see a crab and run out and grab it and put it in a kids bucket to show them a crab before releasing it.

When they had one crab I asked them if I could take a picture of it eith my stereo 3d camera. We used both flashlights for e bucket light effect .

Here's the crab, in his bucket holding cell as we were ready to question him. The crab had no answers, so we let him go.





And as an anaglyph photo below





We chatted and talked for a while while walking down the beach. The next day I ran into the same family again, in the daylight. I took their picture with the 3d camera and emailed it to them. Half the fun of being on vacation is meeting others.

The next day I was looking for other photos with foreground and background imagery for the 3d camera.

Here is a photo of the beach from beneath the famous Daytona Beach pier.






Here is the red blue version of it.







Below is a photo of the entrance to Daytona Beach near the pier.






And for those of you with red blue 3d glasses.






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St Augustine scooters

They rent scooters in St Augustine here.












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Location:St Augustine, Florida

Fort at St Augustine

Canons on display.







Canon and mortars on display.





The well designed approach defense. This fort was not taken although attacked twice by the British, when the Spanish held it.






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Location:St Augustine, Florida

McDonalds, St Augustine fort.

McDonalds south of St Augustine.

















Ducks crossing the drive through.












I walked to St Augustine and took some photos of the Fort there.

Every hour they fire a Canon, an 8 pound canon. Very fun to watch and very loud.
















The crew gets ready to fire the canon.











Here I'm getting my picture taken with the crew. These are volunteers.





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St Augustine Lighthouse part 2

Close up of St Augustine lighthouse through the trees.






And the anaglyph version below


Rooftops in foreground.



And the anaglyph version below


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Location:St Augustine, Florida

St Augustine Lighthouse

The St Augustine lighthouse was another fun tour to go on. My biggest mistake was taking it later in the afternoon and forgetting one of the batteries for my 3d camera. I didn't get as many 3d pictures as I would have liked to during my tour of this lighthouse, especially once I was up top, when the battery died.

Here is the lighthouse framed in trees as you can see, there is a spiders web between the two trees.










Another shot from virtually the same location.









They have a speaker system which is like a portable cell phone that has recordings for different labels on the tour. There's about 90 mi urea of commentary, maybe more so you can take a nice long tour and hear a lot more information taking the audio tour aid with you. I highly recommend this. The St Augustine lighthouse tour is more expensive than the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse. It's 9.50 if I recall correctly and the Ponce Inlet admission cost is less, closer to 6 dollars. There is more information in the St Augustine tour due to the audio aids.

Below is an example of the lighthouse keepers garden.



And the anaglyph version below




Here is a mirror closer to the lighthouse in a garden, a good thing for a self portrait and wide angle reflection photo showing the lighthouse.




And the anaglyph version below






The stairwell is more scary in the St Augustine lighthouse because you can see through the stairs. There is a secret to the fear of climbing up and down in a lighthouse. I think in climbing up you should just focus on the side wall and not look down. The steps feel so steep and look so steep that I was afraid I'd have some fear walking down them. My fear would be falling. However a father with a family was going down with his small son and he said to his son there is a way to go down the steps, that is easy. You face the railing and walk down sideways with your back to the wall. Side stepping. This keeps the railing in front of you and of course you can look across at the wall also. But the main thing is you won't feel like you can trip and fall forward and down the steps, but rather if you fell forward it would be into a railing you are holding, so it's a much safer way to go down and feel safe.

I mentioned this to a woman who seemed afraid in going up and her friend and I kept her spirits up as she went up. She was getting afraid, and being afraid of heights in natural and something we have to work at in overcoming. We took it one level at a time and eventually the view was worth it of course.

When you are up top, it's very windy and you have to hold onto your hat, by tightening it up a lot before you go out and also keep track of anything loose. I was especially careful with my iPhone and narrow w3 3d camera by Fujix. I was careful to insure I would not lose my grip as I didn't want to drop anything.


And the anaglyph version below


Here is a closer view of the lighthouse. This is setup for the red blue anaglyph glasses, not stereo cross eye method. I'm going to post more of these later.




Here is the cross eyed view.





The view from the lighthouse.









Here is a view from the local neighborhood of the lighthouse.










Across the street from the lighthouse that is across on highway a1a is a alligator park. You can even take a rip line ride over alligator areas if you want a thrill. I didn't visit the park but this is a giant alligator or model of one in a large army truck next to the game park. It looks like he's going to swallow the lighthouse from this angle.










Another view of the truck below. Check out the lighthouse reflection in the windshield.











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Location:St Augustine, Florida

St Augustine Beach

Here's a sign near the splash park.






And the anaglyph version below


A pier at St Augustine beach.



And the anaglyph version below


there is a civil rights memorial sign and building that has some historical relevance in some kind of sit or swim in event that happened during the Civil Rights movement. There is also a bocci ball court nearby. There were a lot of Italians in this area.



And the anaglyph version below


Another view of splash park sign.



And the anaglyph version below


I also rented a Segway the day after taking these photos at St Augustine Beach. A photo or two will follow in a later post.



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