Orion Ranch Observatory Blog

Hi Everyone,

I’ve been working on a 3-D model of the observatory to let me work out all the dimensional issues and make sure I’m happy with it before I start any construction. I’ve uploaded an isometric view and an animation to give everyone an idea of what it will look like. I’m still working on it and will post additional pictures as I have time. Still, thought I’d share with you what I had. Enjoy!

Michael

We lucked into scheduling our vacation in Kauai to coincide with the monthly star party of the Kauai Educational Association for Science & Astronomy (K.E.A.S.A.) and were able to enjoy some really nice dark skies.  I’ve posted some pictures from the star party here, and will be adding some post processed versions of the wide field Milky Way shots when I have time to work on them.

Well, after months of fiddling with this off and on every few weeks, I finally got a process of the Rosette that both I and my wife like.  Now maybe I’ll work on a few other nebulae shots I have where the star density is high.

Note I’ve also done a bit more re-arranging of things.

Michael

You may notice some changes to the layout of the site. I’m going to subdivide the astrophotos a bit. So far I’ve pulled the planetary out of the rest, making a nicer looking first page to the gallery. At some point I’ll separate the deep sky objects into galaxies, nebulae, clusters, etc. Moving these around break some of my embedded images on Cloudy Nights and elsewhere, so sorry about that. The links still work, but the thumbnails move.

Michael

Hi all. I just updated both the gallery and blog to the latest versions. Looks like everything is working well, but please feel free to let me know if you find a problem. I’ve also started updating a site of the observatory kind. Well, just packing up all the equipment for the moment, but hopefully I’ll get a slab poured before the end of the summer. I need to get the new 10 acres fenced so the livestock can run it before I spend too much time on the observatory. In the meantime, I’m working on updating/finishing the drawings for the roll-off, and have enlarged everything by a foot in each direction so the main observatory floor will now be 16×26′!

I had the opportunity to tour the John F. Kennedy Space Center outside Orlando, Florida last Sunday.  I took the “Ultimate Experience” tour that included the “Lunch with an Astronaut” (John Blaha who flew five shuttle missions and spent four months on Mir) and an extended bus tour with multiple stops not included in the baseline visit.  This allowed for capture of some good pictures including the Space Shuttle Endeavour on Launch Pad 39A, poised for its last flight (STS-134) next month.  The only problem was that with these scheduled events, there wasn’t enough time to do all of the other stuff they had to offer (Hubble 3-D and Space Station 3-D IMAX movies, shuttle simulator, Star Trek Experience, etc.).  The ticket actually allows guests to come back a second day within the week, but I didn’t know that beforehand and didn’t schedule the time.   

I’ve put the better pictures on the website here.  Just click on the picture below.

I just posted some of my latest images of widefield galaxy shots.  There are also a few posted several weeks ago.  I’m kind of working backwards and have quite a few images where I’m still not satisfied with the processing.  Look for new posts before too much longer.  Enjoy!

Michael

M95, M96, M105, NGC 3384 & NGC 3389 – Galaxies in Leo

M84, M86, M87, & NGC 4438 – The Eyes & Vicinity

M65, M66, NGC3628 – The Leo Trio

M81 & M82 – Bode’s Nebula (Galaxy) and Cigar Galaxy

NGC 869 & NGC 884 – The Double Cluster

Wow, this blog post never got posted.  Bit late now, but you might want to check out the full lunar eclipse from last December!

Saturday night turned out pretty good, so I managed to get a few more pictures.  I captured the Christmas Tree Cluster and the surrounding Cone Nebula just in time for Christmas!  With the moon moving towards full, this was the last chance to do so before Christmas.  I also captured a wide field with my Nikon piggy-backed on the guide scope.  I still have a number of other images to process, and am learning some new techniques that are making this heavy star field images look much better.  Look for the rest of those images in the next couple of weeks.  I hope you enjoy and have a Blessed Christmas Holiday and a Happy New Year.

Michael

The last couple of weekends have been pretty productive and I’m making some progress on the list of images I have to stack and process.  I’ve finally posted the new Andromeda Galaxy from the end of October, as well as a new Horsehead Nebula from last Friday, which turned out really great despite waking up to a bunch of dew soaked equipment on Saturday!  There’s similar high humidity and cloudy skies predicted for tonight so I wimped out and didn’t go image despite the clear skies at the moment.  On last Saturday night I also managed to get some wide field shots of a couple areas of the Milky Way using the Nikon D90 piggybacked on the ST-80, although the flats didn’t turn out right for them.  Look for these and posts of The Cave Nebula, The Flaming Star Nebula, and possibly a new Orion Nebula over the next week.  The shots of Orion have a bit more background noise than I like for what I want to be able to show, so I may have to reshoot that one.  Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Michael