Orion Ranch Observatory Blog

I’ve managed to generate new darks and debayer all of the frames from my QHY-247C on my AT-80LE.  I’m post processing these in Photoshop and have processed the six 6-millisecond frames from totality.  I have six times that with exposures from 1-6 ms, so hopefully I can process all of those to similar levels and make a finer resolution animation.  Here it is in GIF format.  I may do a video version as well to see if it looks any better.  You can visit the gallery here.

Unprocessed and not deBayered, but here was totality!  Watch for updates in the coming week or two!

It’s still not looking great for Monday, but we’re so borderline it’s painful.  The Clear Sky Chart is showing a tiny gap right around the start of the eclipse and clouding back up after totality.  However, this morning vs. last night is showing less morning cloud and a bit wider slot overall.

Looking at the map, it’s apparent that up through Arkansas will potentially be the best viewing, but I don’t think we want to try a last minute trip.  We’re so close the back edge of this front that just a bit of shift will greatly change what happens here.  That tail edge just needs to shift a bit further south and it will miss us completely.  We’re going to keep praying for a bit more of a break in the clouds!  

After weeks of prep and quite a few days/evenings of cleaning, the observatory is cleaner than it’s been in years and I have both piers set up for solar observing and photography.  Test runs of photos with my QHY247C on my AT80LE look great, and all is ready to go if the weather will cooperate!

The framing isn’t perfect on the piggyback, but as long as I move it just before totality, it should be perfect for the corona shots too!

I’m not normally outspoken about my faith, especially online, but when people ask, I’ll tell them that I can’t look at the wonders and majesty of this universe and the elegance of the physics that we’ve discovered and believe that it all occurred by random chance.  I also firmly believe in the power of prayer and that God will answer the prayers of the faithful.  It may not always be the answer we want, but what could be a more amazing example of His glory than this eclipse!  So please join me in praying for good weather and safe travel and observing for all of those wishing to see this eclipse!

Well, over the weekend, weather.com started showing the long term forecast for April 8th, and unfortunately it’s not looking good.  That said, given that they haven’t been able to accurately predict our weather here eight hours ahead of time, I’m hopeful that they’re way off here.  The forecast has been changing significantly every time we look at it, varying from partly cloudy with a 25% chance of rain to up over 50% then back down to 25% and now at 32% chance of morning showers.  We’ll keep praying that will change significantly, but right now it is likely to be a disappointing event here in Central Texas.  Things aren’t looking much better, anywhere along the line in Texas, although down at Uvalde they’re saying partly cloudy.  We’ll keep praying for better weather and keep preparing for the day.  If everyone can join in this Easter weekend, I’m sure we can have a miracle!  

Historic predictions from the National Weather Service, as well as my own recollection and records of April weather give us a 50/50 chance of having clear skies here in Central Texas and the rest of the state.  As we’re sitting here today under a band of cloud cover that spans the entire eclipse path with the possible exception of upstate New York and Maine, I’m not overly optimistic about the chances of being able to drive a few hours to get out from under any clouds we may have here, but you never know.  

We’re still planning to host an event here for friends and family, and we’re open to others who may wish to come enjoy the eclipse with us.  We’re still getting settled in our new house, so some of the other things I had hoped to have done by eclipse time aren’t going to happen, but there’s still room for day guests for the event.  That said, I’m also prepared to load up the truck and drive to Dallas or Fredericksburg if the weather doesn’t cooperate!  

Never look at the sun without eye protection!

The next great total solar eclipse is now less than a year away, with a path from Mexico, up through Texas and much of the Eastern United States, leaving through northern New York and Maine. Given the rarity of such an event many people will be planning to make the trip to see the eclipse somewhere along the path. While the rest of the country will see a partial (penumbral) eclipse, only those along the marked path will see the Sun totally blocked by our Moon. Having had the opportunity to see the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse from Ravenna Nebraska, I have to say that it is an indescribable experience that you have to see for yourself!

Path of the 2024 solar eclipse, courtesy of Xavier Jubier’s interactive Google Map.

Here in Central Texas, we will get a beautiful view of a total solar eclipse across most of the Hill Country, with the centerline crossing through (or very near) Kerrville, Fredericksburg, Enchanted Rock State Park, Lake Buchanan, and Lampasas, continuing on through Gatesville, Hillsboro, Ennis, Sulphur Springs, and Clarksville. Most of Austin , Dallas/Fort Worth, Waco, and about half of San Antonio will also experience at least a short period of totality.

Path of 2024 solar eclipse through Texas.

Orion Ranch Observatory is situated about 19.5 miles off the centerline, so we’ll have almost four minutes and eleven seconds of totality compared to the 4:24.7 on the centerline.  For the extra 14 seconds of totality, it’s really not worth fighting with moving all my equipment to the centerline, assuming the weather holds.  Based on our weather this year, I’d say we’re about a 50:50 chance of being clear vs. cloudy, which matches the predictions for the area based on twenty years of data (see below).  Still, Texas is the best chance in the country and only western Mexico would be better.  We’re hoping to have a big event here (fill out the contact form if you’re interested in joining us), but I plan to look for options within driving distance, just in case.  My uncle’s farm is down by Fredericksburg, so I’m somewhat covered to the south, and Hillsboro would be easy to get to going north.  Even further gets us near Paris, TX, where my wife grew up!

Orion Ranch Observatory Totality

There are plenty of other excellent opportunities for visitors to the hill country.  The Eagle Eye Observatory (formerly the Austin Astronomical Society’s dark sky site) at Canyon of the Eagles on the north side of Lake Buchanan is just past the centerline, which passes right through the Burnet County Park on the north side of the lake.  There’s another park on the south side which is also on centerline.

Lake Buchanan and Surrounding Area including Oatmeal, (home of Orion Ranch) 

About half way between Burnet and Fredericksburg is Enchanted Rock State Park.  I doubt they’d let anyone set up a telescope on the rock, but imagine the view from up there and watching the oncoming shadow!  There appear to be some neat places to stay around the area as well.  

Enchanted Rock State Park and area.

Enchanted Rock

Now, as to weather, Jay Anderson has an excellent website that covers the weather forecast for the entire path of the eclipse.  Below are a couple of his images showing what we can expect.  As my own experience predicted, we’re at the 50% chance mark through most of Texas for that time of year, but that’s better than the rest of the country!

Cloud Fraction Map for April

Cloud Fraction Chart for April

It’s easy to find information on the eclipse with a simple web search, but eclipse2024.org has put together a very good set of resources and links, including viewing locations and an article on why you must see the total eclipse and not just a partial eclipse.  There’s also plenty of good information on viewing and safety, as well as links to buy viewing glasses.  There’s also information there on this year’s annular eclipse in October.  It will be passing just south of Fredericksburg on a Saturday, so I’ll probably try getting down there if I can!  

So happy observing!  I hope you get a chance to see something like this as it’s something you’ll never forget.  Feel free to contact us if you’re interested in attending our event at Orion Ranch Observatory.  And always remember:

Never look at the sun without eye protection!

My all sky camera had been out of operation for a year or more due to a flakey USB interface.  I’m not sure how much of that was related to my observatory PC as other USB devices give me problems there too, but basically I’d just get a handful of pictures before the camera would go offline.  There haven’t been any advances in USB over Ethernet (at least not in an affordable price range), thus, I decided to upgrade my unit with an embedded stick PC.  I bought a this new stick PC from Amazon (couldn’t find my old one, but it was failing on me anyway), but it was too big to fit in my old housing. 

Thus I altered the design to make the shell the outside diameter of the dome, but flared it down to the original diameter at the base so I didn’t have to redesign everything else.  It worked, but wasn’t terribly easy to get the thing assembled.  I also replaced the dome as it was pretty badly fogged. 

tight, so I’ll be redesigning the whole thing to have a wider base and more fan.  I need to do it anyway as the base is starting to collapse. 

Well, after about two years of being shut down and occupied with the construction of our new house, I’ve finally started taking some time to get back into astrophotography.  On Black Friday we started looking at solar scopes and H-Alpha filters and I ended up buying a used DayStar Gemini Quark. 

Using my QHY5III178 as a monochrome camera, I was able to capture a few videos and get them processed into some reasonably good images.

After that, I managed to repair my CGE Pro (see the video at https://youtu.be/UoY_97RK67w) and rebuilt my imaging rig using a mini PC that rides on the OTA.  This eliminates all the long control cables from the mount back to the laptop I traditional used.  It’s a bit tricky to run “headless” without a monitor or keyboard, and my traditional Chrome Remote Desktop doesn’t work reliably.  Luckily it has Windows Pro and thus I can use Windows Remote Desktop Connection, which works well over the local network. 

I haven’t had much integration time so far, but I’ve finished one short imaging session of M33. 

The observatory still needs a lot of clean-up, as does everything else around here, but I’m working on it!