I'm Not Dead yet..

The soon to be infamous "Comet of the century" - ISON (or ISOFF) done the Icarus act and was pretty much vaporized into a drifting rubble pile as it swooped by the Sun at a little over 700,000 miles from the Sun on Turkey-Day ( Read more... )

OK, its been awhile - hmm, 3 months since the last post. Lots of news and things happening, but the biggest change is being diagonosed as a Type II diabetic . My a1c wasn't very good - a 9.1, but the meds are working and I've made significant changes in my diet.

I have lots and LOTS of new shinies - but I'll just post this one:

June 22, 2013 - " ( Read more... )

.The Doctor said, and there was SHINY and it was Good.

Last week I was at the 19th Peach State Star Gaze, held at the Deerlick Astronomy Village or DAV. On Friday I gave a talk on Lunar Geology for the Solar System Symposium and imaged all manner of deep sky objects during the mostly clear night skies ( Read more... )

Yep, I celebrated another trip around the Sun. I turned 55 on October 6 and spent the 'wee hours' imaging Jupiter and the Moon. The seeing was pretty good, and some of the Moon images were spectacular.

So take a look..

Crater Triesnecker and numerous volcanic rilles


( Read more... )

No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!Still on LJ - barely. I do go on to read posts a couple times a day, but for the most part I'm on FB. I post LOTS of images and astronomy/science stuff on there, so if you haven't friended me yet - so so (as Richard Jakiel ( Read more... )

On the 5th of June, much of the world was treated to one of the rarest of all predicted events - a transit of Venus across the disk of the Sun. Visible as an extremely dark, sharp 'dot', this is the silhouette of planet seen against the intensely brilliant disk of our Sun. Though visible throughout the states, only beginning to mid-transit would be ( Read more... )

Its been a busy week of planetary and solar system imaging/viewing. Earlier this week, the Crescent Moon made a close pass of first the planet Jupiter ('a bright star') low in the western sky. The following day (March 26), the Moon was in conjunction with Venus (the brightest 'star'). Hopefully, some of you had a chance to observe this spectacular ( Read more... )

A lot has happened since my last picture post, both at Mars House and LJ land in general. My old college gf Sharon (who I haven't seen in over 25 years) came down from Springfield, VT for a visit during the last week of February. We went to the Atlanta Zoo (she used to be a zoo keeper for the Buffalo Zoo), some local parks and a weekend at the ( Read more... )

Has it been that long?

Wow, nearly a month has pasted since my last post. It hasn't been totally uneventful, either - there was a storm that dumped rain in near epic proportions during MLK weekend, plus the usual (and unusual) goings on of a MAD scientist.

First, there has been the training of Eddie the Izzard, the half-grown bearded lizard ( Read more... )

Happy Winter Solstice, Saturnalia and Sol Invictus Day!

I think of the three - Sol Invictus is my favorite. The 'unconquered Sun' was a popular coin/image motif in the late Roman Empire. The figure is remarkably 'Christ-like' in appearance - in fact, the early Christians will 'borrow' this image for later iconography ( Read more... )