Three Polarized Filters

Put three polarized filters in a row.

What do you get?

Put the 45 in the middle and it lets the light through!

It depends on the order

Put the 45 last and it blocks.

Viewing Comet C/2012 K5 LINEAR

Viewed in both 10" reflector with setting circles and 80ED with LDX55 GoTo.

 Simulated View from Stellarium

Lunar X

Got a snap of the Lucky Old Moon this morning:

Venus Transit June 5 2012

Fantastic Event

We had clear skies wonderful weather and saw the transit from 3:06 pm til sunset.  We viewed first contact and second contact using a Meade Backpack 60mm , 20x80 Big Binocs, and Vixen 80mm APO tracking and Pentax DSLR for video and photos.

We had custom made Baader Solar Visual Film and Vintage Tahiti Eclipse glasses.

After second contact the transit was easily visible in the Eclipse glasses at 1x.

Photos were at 600/16=37.5x

Visually, we used 600/8.8=68x magnification and also tried 2x Barlow at 136x as well.

The resolution was incredible and the black spot of Venus was a wonder to behold!

John Turner, Jan, and myself at this once in a lifetime event!

It was a wonderful event and we had much fun.  I made a couple of sketches and saw over 25 sunspots.  They changed over the duration.

At 5pm we visited a friend and viewed through a PST in H-a wavelength and saw several flares as well.

At sunset I carried the Big Binocs down the street a bit and caught the last rays.

Partial Lunar Eclipse Morning of June 4 2012

 

View from back yard of lunar eclipse at 4am.
June 4, 2012
day before Venus transit!

May 20 2012 Annular Eclipse

 

Dirty Rat caught sneaking around back of house!

Let me OUT!!!

Let me go?

May 20 2012 Annular Eclipse of the Sun 

Navajo National Monument 

Sunset View Campground

The Main Event

Before Eclipse

Just Before Max

Center Line Dudes!!!

After Eclipse

Jan and Wheeler with the ETX Solar Scope

Sketch of Sunspots

Almost Halfway with Sunspot in View

Sunset Afterwards

Setting Sun

Last Rays

Cool Binoc View straight from camera

Camera captures reflections of light

The Straw Hat Shadows

The Straw Hat Effect

 Binocular Views courtesy of Bill and Will Golz

Bino Solar Filter Breakfast Box

View in the Binocs

 

Hello Dudes,

The Wheel has been on a Holland America cruise along the Mexican Riviera!

Good Eats :






















Fruit Pallet des Artiste

















Iced Melon Bisque

Thai Green Papaya salad


















Your Curried Vegetable Cutlet

















And to top it off , a Peach Melba sundae with a Sacher Torte and a nice cappuccino to finish.



That's Good Eatin Dawgs!

1989 ? Petaluma Queen

This is Jan at a friend in SF's house.

We spent New Years on the Petaluma Queen some time ago. Jan and I and friends Doug Wright and Vladimir. I remember Vlad saying he was going back to USSR/Russia and I thought what an exciting time to be there.

Nostalgia

This is an old hippie in his younger days










This is Jan and Skip with my old buddy Rich when he visited me in the Old Pueblo on Sept 11, 2004.
They are in the railway station, Rich liked to travel by train.



Way back when touring w the Dead.








In Mendocino we had some nice sunsets




View from my house:

Birthday Trip to North Rim and Monument Valley

You can see the river way in the back, I think that is a tributary in the foreground.

Got a new Camper, a Pegasus and spent birthday at Monument Valley and North Rim.

This is sunset from our campsite.








Here is Jan in front of our brand spanking new 2008 Pegasus camper plus our new 1999 Ford Expedition, cool huh?




Looks like rain.
And it did.








Guess who in front of Angel's Window, one of the most famous spots on the North Rim. We walked over to that spot in the background and it was lightnin and folks' hair was standin on end, so we skedadlled out of thar right quick.