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A Runaway Star and the Flaming Star Nebula

IC 405 and AE Aurigae

Stardate: Saturday November 14, 2009.
Place: Chuckwalla Bench Observing Site
Equipment: 12.5-inch Litebox Reflector, f/5.75 Pierrre Schwaar mirror
Sky conditions: Better than expected (clear, steady, good transparancy, but cold)

Mojo and I try to head out to our favorite dark sky observing spot every new moon Saturday night. Usually several of our Old [...]

Flying through the Leonid Storm of 1999

ARIA Advanced Radar Instrument Aircraft

Jane boarding the ARIA

4 of the 6 IMCU team members in front of ARIA

November 1999: 10 days, 40 flying hours, 65 researchers and Air Force personnel, five members of the press, seven Air Force bases (four US, two UK, one Azores), 6 amateur astronomers, three aircraft, 15,251 [...]

Dorothea Klumpke, airborne Leonid pioneer

Dorothea Klumpke

As I prepare a blog down memory lane, recalling my own airborne observations of the 1999 Leonid Storm, I wanted to share the adventures of the first woman airborne Leonid pioneer, Dorothea Klumpke.

Over one hundred years ago, American born astronomer Dorothea Klumpke flew through the Leonids in a balloon. She was the first [...]

Halloween Sidewalk Astronomy - Tradition!

Hauling a telescope across the streets of San Francisco

Jane-Orion plus Canis Major and Canis Minor

Mojo demonstrating where to find Jupiter’s moons

Getting some eye candy

Sidewalk Astronomers have been setting up telescopes on Halloween as long as there have been sidewalk astronomers!

When we lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, we’d cross the [...]

Spooky Halloween Observing, 2014 edition

The ghoul on the moon

NGC 246 the Skull Nebula

IC 2118 Witch Head Nebula

It’s time to get out the Milky Way and Mars candy bars, the Moon Pies and the Starburst chews. It’s Halloween! The moon — just past first quarter — will greet your trick or treaters this year. A first quarter [...]

Another perfect stargazing night

Observing report, dark sky weekend, October, 2009, Chuckwalla Bench

A perfect night begins with Earth's shadow climbing in the east

One one side of the green van is the Imaging zone

On the other side of the green van is the visual observing zone

When the clear sky chart reads perfect, we can’t wait to get [...]

First Nations Astronomy - seeing the Cree and Ojibway Sky

Wilfred Buck at NYAA Starfest 2009

Ochek Atchakosuk – The Fisher Stars

Atima Atchakosuk – the dog stars with Polaris, Mihkun Atchakos, the wolf star

Matootisan – The Sweat Lodge

Matootisan Assiniuk – Sweat Lodge Rocks

Niska flying in the Summer Bird's Path (Milky Way)

Atchakosuk are the spirit lights up above. “All people [...]

LCROSS impact in crater Cabeus October 09 2009

Rough sketch of LCROSS impact area

finished sketch of Cabeus and environs

E. A. Whitaker 1954 sketch

Mojo and I started to setup his 14.5-inch f/4.8 Litebox reflector at 3:30 a.m. on LCROSS impact morning. There were marine layer clouds at that hour, but by the time we were set up it was clear [...]

9/11/09 My view of shuttle Discovery landing

Look for the shuttle to the right of the contrail in my photo (click on the image for full res version)

Shuttle and ground in one image. This photo and the rest of these photos courtesy of Gary Spiers

Space shuttle Discovery

Touchdown – twin dustplumes from gear touching down

Parachute deploys

NASADryden tweeted at [...]