More Clear Skies....Whoo-hoo!!!!!

After a frustrating day behind the wheel of a 40-foot city bus, it was wonderful to come home and enjoy some nice, clear skies.
This is the Moon at 11 p.m. Thursday night.....

ISS Early Thursday Morning

Last night (Wednesday), my motion detection camera captured the ISS gliding across the sky, traveling in a northeast direction (toward the lower-left of the image)......it was visible only briefly, as it reflected the sunlight from below the eastern horizon......

Exploding Glow

Today was a cloudy day. I did manage to get in some yard work...mowed the front lawn and pressure-washed about 40 feet of my back fence. This evening, I was looking over the images captured by my northeast-facing webcam, and saw this amazing event occuring in the northeast, as the Sun was setting in the west. The sky seemed to explode in a glow briefly...

Earthshine

If you were lucky enough to have some clear skies on Sunday night, you may have seen the beautiful crescent Moon in the west, just after sunset. As the evening grew darker, the crescent became more brilliant and the earthshine (sunlight reflecting off the Earth and illuminating the dark portion of the Moon) was evident. To the left of the Moon, is a faint star in the constellation Taurus (the Bull).........

Wide-Field Saturn

What a great weekend....so far. Sunny days and clear nights. I used the opportunity to do some imaging last night. This is a wide-field image of Saturn, using a 28mm lens on a CCD camera, mounted on a telescope which is "tracking", or following the stars across the sky. It is a 10-minute exposure. I actually enjoy doing wide-field the most...it tends to give more of a perspective of the region of sky being photographed (as opposed to the previous image of Saturn, showing only the planet). Click on photo for larger version.....

Dynamic Hit Map

Here is a "dynamic" hit-map of visitors from around the world who visit my website....

FOLLOW-UP: Moondog (Worldwide) Astronomy

So far, the average daily hit count went from 5 to 18! We had 35 first-time visitors to the website just today (Friday).

Thanks to Knit Witch for chiming in from Georgia.

My "hit map", at any given time shows only the 10 most recent hits, so your location may or may not show up when I have a chance to check it. But here is how the site traffic has changed in the past 2 days.....

...and we've only just begun!!!!!!

Moondog (Worldwide) Astronomy

This is a worldwide map, showing the locations of people who view my website. (The information was taken from a "hit map" included in my hit counter).

Just for kicks, let's all see if we can plaster the map with dots....send my website address (www.moondogastronomy.com) to everyone you know, and see what happens!

***The average number of hits per day, over the past 7 days is 5.

Check back here for continuing results.......

Saturn and the Moon

We are FINALLY getting some spring weather! This weekend, we are blessed with sunny days and clear, cold nights. I took advantage of the weather and got out with my 10" telescope last night to photograph Saturn (my first Saturn images this year!). The Moon was out, too, so I shot some craters while I was at it.....enjoy.....

Because of the changing orientation of Saturn's orbit around the Sun, the rings are viewed "edge-on", as opposed to years past, when the full glory of

the rings were visible as Saturn was tilted toward us.

This over-exposed image shows 3 of Saturn's moons!

...and speaking of moons, here are some images of prime real-estate on the Moon.....

The large crater, Plato. This crater is about 70 miles in diameter! (Note the long valley at the right...)

The crater, Tycho (center) has a large, prominent central peak.

Copernicus has two central peaks!


Mountains on the Moon!