astro-flash


Off to OSP

The word of the day is chaos.  I’ve been getting ready for OSP (the Oregon Star Party), which starts next week.  To give you an idea of just how busy it has been here at Wa-chur-ed Observatory, we’ve had multiple nights of beautiful, clear skies lately, but I have not been out to the observatory at all – too many other things need to get done.  Very few things have higher priority for me than collecting a few photons from a dark sky. But I do have some progress to report as a result of my “indoor work”:  First, I’ve […]


Busy Days and Dreary Nights

The night sky has actually been completely free of clouds for several days.  Unfortunately, it has not been free of smoke.  Only a few of the brightest stars can be seen and the Moon looks decidedly yellow.  And the same weather pattern that is allowing this smoke to stick around is also keeping us very warm here.  Daytime temperatures have been well over 100 degrees F, and at night it doesn’t get cold enough for my camera to operate properly, so it’s a double whammy. I’m getting ready for the Oregon Star Party – and the eclipse!  My inventory has […]


New: Astro-Flash Viewer

For several years now I have offered a collection of my best astro-photos on a USB flash drive for use as a slide show, screen saver, wallpaper, etc.  The collection has now grown to over 45 images and I’ve added an application (for Windows computers only) that does a slide show with configurable text overlays. Each image has 3 type of information available; the title, object information, and technical data.  The “Setup” menu allows you to select which of these 3 is displayed during the slide show, but you can also switch it “on the fly” using hotkeys.  For example, […]