Star Party Tonight

Send your name to Mars! NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover is heading to the Red Planet. Submit your name by Sept. 30, 2019, 11:59 p.m. ET, and fly along! https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/mars2020  

Team to Transmit Messages to the Spacecraft During New Year’s Flyby in the Kuiper Belt NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has traveled 13 years to reach the heart of the Kuiper Belt – but you can get there in a matter of hours! In 2005, more than 430,000 people signed up online to place their names […]

One of my favorite places to hold a star party is in the desert east of San Diego. On Tuesday March 7th, 2017 I headed out to Aqua Caliente County Park to meetup with a dear friend Sandy H. and her band of home school parents and teachers. We had a lovely evening which started out […]

I am pleased to present this paper that I co-authored with two teachers and submitted to JDSO this year as part of the Boyce Astro program. Hilde van den Bergh1, Chris Olivas2, Jerry Hilburn3 Mentor, BEWiSE, Fleet Science Center, San Diego, California, USA. Chris Olivas, High Tech Middle School, San Marcos, California, USA. Epsilon Orion […]

I am excited to report the submission of a double star research paper to the Journal of Double Star Observations. I co-authored the paper with a team of College professors in the local San Diego area. This research project was part of an Astronomy Research Seminar offered by Cuesta College, supported by the Institute for Student […]

There are few places in America where you can go and not have Internet or Cell phone coverage. Today I will embark on a journey to such a place. Texas. Actually, not all of it, just McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis. And of course I will driving across the desert at the hottest time of […]

I shot this on July 4th 2016 with a Canon 6D and a 135mm EF Redline piggy backed to a AVX mount. 3 shots stacked, each 2 minutes long at 800 ISD. First pretty picture I have taken with the new camera. Click Link for Full Size

Friday night I started calibration and testing of the imaging system at 8PM. By 10pm I was ready to start taking data on the Halloween Asteroid. When I first moved the scope into position and started shooting I tried a series of 60 second shots, then 30 second, then 10 second shots. The challenge was […]

I love a spectacle, or more precisely the high energy motion of a fast moving rock. Join me Friday night at TDS as we attempt to shoot asteroid TB145  as it screams past earth beginning at 10pm. The asteroid will appear just below the moon near Orion moving northeast. The asteroid will move 12 degrees in […]

We have been working hard to bring a robotic telescope to fully operational status for the last 5 months. This project originally started as a collaboration with at NASA Ames which we started 9 years ago, but 4 years ago a lighting strike took out the equipment. Pat and Grady Boyce (both SDAA members) leased the […]

On Sunday September 27th West Coast lunar observers will be treated to a rare event. Starting at 6:45pm the Moon will rise already eclipsed by Earth’s shadow. The moon is also at its closest approach to the Earth in its orbit as well (known as a Super Moon by the public) and it is the […]