Key Sun = Luna = Venus = Mars = Jupiter = Saturn = Deep Sky = experiment =
Date: Images of: Description:
October 25, 2003 Two huge sunspots on the Sun's surface
August 26/27, 2003 Mars at its closest!
August 24, 2003 Mars, 24 hours before its closest pass to Earth.
August 20, 2003 Mars again.
August 18, 2003 Sharper Mars, better color setting with the ToUCAM.
August 13, 2003 WE ARE BACK!

The C8 is back from repair!. It has a new matched corrector, cleaned optics and has been collimated. Just in time for Mars' close approach. Already the results are exciting!

September 30, 2002 All sort of stuff from a single roll of Elitechrome: Ikeya-Zhang, Perseids and the ISS.
September 21, 2002 Harvest Moon rising over the North Cascades
September 20, 2002 Sun and Harvest Moon with the Coolpix
June 19, 2002 All I managed was M57.
June 10, 2002 Partial Solar eclipse, only managed to get the Coolpix working...
April 31, 2002 Clear night, took a snap of the planetary alignment with the digital camera (Coolpix 885).
February - April 31, 2002 Weather hasn't been cooperative and I've been mainly experimenting with film, so there's not much to look at. I did take some pictures of Ikeya-Zhang, but they didn't scan well.
February 3, 2002 Clear, but hazy skies, first session in a long time. First use of the C8 with the f/3.3.
December 23, 2001 Great session of good steady air, quickcam on M42
December 14, 2001 First imaging session with the new EQ-6 mount, this time I'm trying video integration.
November 18, 2001 LEONIDS! Unbelievably clear skies for November. My first real attempt at film wide field. I did manage to catch a few meteors, too!
October 17, 2001 First time out since I collimated. Now I'm fighting fog!
September 29, 2001 Still trying to get the sharp image of Saturn I've been dreaming about.
September 22, 2001 My first planetary images with the C8. Saturn was the target this evening.
September 10, 2001 Finally. I managed to get some images at the prime focus of the C8. I focused the quickcam during the day and found it much easier to fine focus it that night. First images of M57 for me.
August 11, 2001 No images today, just great seeing. Spent the weekend in Leavenworth, WA under 6.8+ skies! My wife and I counted over 30 perseids in an hour, which was quite spectacular. M31, M33 and the Twin Clusters were naked-eye visible and as was the North American Nebula. I don't recall seeing skies so dark in recent memory. Back to the light-polluted, smog-laden skies of Seattle....
August 9, 2001 First film images, Canon SLR at the prime-focus of the C8.
August 1, 2001 Working on perfecting dark frames, short session due to clouds.
July 27, 2001 Still experimenting with QCV2 settings...
July 27, 2001 Good seeing, good tracking and my first resolvable deep sky images! M13 and M31.
July 25, 2001 First deep attempt, not so good.
June 21-July 24, 2001 I've been fortunate enough to have been loaned the use of a classic Orange Celestron C8 SCT! I have been spending most of my time familiarizing myself with its operation, and with the moon blotting out of most the seeing, I haven't had the opportunity to do any deep-sky imaging. I'm anxious to try some video integration on the brighter Messier objects. I'm amazed at the difference in seeing between the 8" and my ETX. Will I ever be able to go back?
June 21, 2001 The moon with the Orion Shorttube and vesta.
June 21, 2001 Security Camera CCD on the sun with Shorttube and ETX.
June 17, 2001 Security Camera CCD and Vesta Pro on the sun.
June 17, 2001 Security CCD (low lux). My first sunspot pictures.
June 8, 2001 VestaPro on the 2x barlow. Poor seeing, heavy haze and bright moon.
June 4, 2001 VestaPro on the 2x barlow, this time, with the aid of a clothes pin, I achieved good focusing.
May 31, 2001 VestaPro on the 2x barlow, not the best clarity. I made an animation showing rotation, too.
March 5, 2001 Slightly better with the use of a Hartmann mask.
March 5, 2001 Images still not up to par with the Quickcam yet.
March 3, 2001 First experiments with Steve Mogg's c-mount adapter. The results are very promising. I really need to fix my ETX so I can properly tune the software and camera with the object in the field of view for longer than 3 seconds.
February 21, 2001 Simple mosaics of the moon with the Orion Shorttube 80mm and Vesta Pro
February 17, 2001 I'm back! After a long hiatus, I'm armed with lots of new gear that I hope to expand my horizons with:
  • T-ring for my Canon SLR
  • Solar filter for the ETX
  • Philips Vesta Pro camera
  • Universal Webcam adapters from Steven Moog
Tonight I was experimenting with COAA's AstroVideo video integration software. The camera is a Panasonic BP330 low-lox security camera. Since I do not have a c-mount adapter, I simply pointed the camera at the sky and played with video integration. The result is commonly known as star-trails.
October 1999 to present New baby, new house, new job mean little time for astronomy these days. Hopefully soon I'll get back out there!
October 21, 1999 Finally managed to catch Saturn with the quickcam, as well as Jupiter.
October 20, 1999 More Jupiter, better this time. I wanted to get some before the rainy season set in.
September 2, 1999 Jupiter images, too much power, so they're a bit blurry.
July 27, 1999 Partial lunar eclipse animation! Also, a new image of Jupiter
May to July Mars is getting smaller, but Jupiter is rising very late, so I hope to be focusing my attention on it starting mid-July!
May 21, 1998 Experimenting with settings on Mars.
May 14, 1998 Mars shows some features, finally.
April 29, 1998 Better performance of the color quickcam, boring Mars though.
April 28, 1998 First light of the new Color Quickcam! The results are less than thrilling.
April 24, 1998 Horrible atmospheric distortion!
April 23, 1998 More processed Mars images
April 22, 1998 Really nice images and animations of Venus
April 19, 1998 Really nice images of Mars, some AVI animations, too.
April 17, 1998 Quickcam meets the barlow
January to date... Record-breaking rain streak here in Seattle. Terrible season for astronomy in Seattle. I could have put up some wonderful Venus-Jupiter conjunction images, too! And I've only used my Autostar twice!
January 3, 1998 Still experimenting with software
December 3, 1998 Experimenting with new software
November 29, 1998 First clear, moonlit night in weeks.
November 6, 1998 Another moon mosaic.
November 5, 1998 A day after the brightest full moon of the year. Damn Seattle.
November 2, 1998 The moon is nearly full. Another mosaic of images, but not as high quality.
October 29, 1998 The moon is out! Only the 2nd time since I have had my scope, first time at prime-focus.
October 26, 1998 Jupiter's moons are all in a row, like pearls on a string.
October 21, 1998 Jupiter bands and moons in one shot!
October 19, 1998 More of the same. Still no luck with M31...trying everything I can think of.
October 18, 1998 More of the same. Trying to clarify the bands of Jupiter a bit more. No luckgetting M31 focused/imaged yet, either.
October 15, 1998 The quickcam is back! And this time its at the prime-focus! Yay! Lots of pictures of Jupiter.
October 7, 1998 Only managed about 1 hour of observing time, it was teerribly overcast. Alsoborrowed Gary's Barlow lense for higher magnification.
October 5, 1998 These are the first quickcam images that I've made with my Meade ETX. Thisare from the 2nd night that I've actually owned the telescope. The moonwas full, and Saturn and Jupiter extremely bright.