Star Party Tonight

It’s that time of year again when the San Diego Astronomy Association host its biggest star party event, Julian Star Fest. This year the event runs from August 13th-16th and with the great weather being projected for the week ahead, is sure to be a wonderful time for all! There will be a full slate […]

This shot was released this morning July 14th 2015 and shows Pluto in full color. I have processed the shot a bit to enhance the contrast and improve saturation for purposes of making the detail stand out. I have to say that the reddish hue of Pluto is entirely unexpected, and the detail level has […]

With less than 24 hours to go the New Horizons team has published its latest image of Pluto and it is stunning! See for yourself! And Charon is coming into focus as well…

The latest photo from New Horizons are hinting at potentially rugged surface features and mysterious dark plains . This first photo is from the July 10th image release where surface features are beginning to come into view as the space craft draws closer to the Planet. In the second image I applied several Photoshop processing […]

This image of Pluto from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) was received on July 8, and has been combined with lower-resolution color information from the Ralph instrument. Credits: NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI After last weekends heart stopping moment when the space craft shut down and went into standby mode, the quick return to science operations provided […]

Pluto is shown in the latest series of LORRI photos, taken May 8-12, 2015, compared to LORRI images taken one month earlier. In the month between these image sets, New Horizons’ distance to Pluto decreased from 68 million miles to 47 million miles.

Speeding toward a historic flyby on July 14 – just over 98 days from now – NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has moved into the second phase of its approach to Pluto and its moons, beginning a series of observations and activities that will bring these distant, icy worlds into sharper focus than humankind has ever […]

By:  Taylor Menconi, Copy Editor The sky is no longer the limit for Mr. Prodan’s AP European History classes. On Monday, Feb. 9, the AP Euro students and their families visited Charter after school hours from 7 to 8:30 p.m. to star-gaze with NASA Ambassador Jerry Hilburn, who was invited by Mr. Prodan. “Since we’ve […]

Home Sweet Observatory Row The SDAA maintains a 10 Acre compound east of San Diego for outreach and research purposes. This picture was taken by a club member as he flew over the compound. The buildings in the top left of the image are observatories. To the right are three roads which provide access to […]

With each passing day New Horizons closes in Pluto and sends back more detailed information about the planets moons. The latest imagery is a time lapse stack of images showing the faint glow of light from the moons Hydra and Nix. The moons Nix and Hydra are visible in a series of images taken at […]

Neil DeGrasse Tyson born October 5, 1958) is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator. Since 1996, he has been the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space. Best viewed Full Screen “To Build A Home” Cinematic Orchestra There is a house built out of […]

Last week I headed out for a 6 day run at the observatory to shoot comet Lovejoy ( C/2014 Q2 ) . The observatory is located about 80 miles east of San Diego at 3800 feet in high desert terrain. Typically the wind blows quite a bit and to put together a few good nights […]