Astronomy Conference & Astrophoto Contest!

Astronomy Conference & Astrophoto Contest!

admin

I attended my first North Central Region of the Astronomical League – NCRAL conference this weekend in Minnetonka, MN.

They had several great speakers on various interesting topics. Everything from a radio telescope project that is literally located at the South Pole, to the NEO Surveyor and its asteroid hunting safari.

There was a “swap meet” there also with some great used equipment. Yes, I “accidentally” purchased another OTA. It is my first telescope in the Maksutov-Cassegrain design.

NCRAL was nice enough to run an astrophotography contest during the conference. I entered different photos in three of the available categories: “Deep Space”, “Solar System”, and “Rich Field”. Everyone present was able to cast a vote in each category. Surprisingly, I won first place in all three categories. They also award a “Best in Show” based on total votes overall, which I happened to win as well!

The Friday night trip to their observatory was well worth it. They have a beautiful facility! I snooped around at their roll off roof setup and their dome configuration. Of course, I had to take a look at Jupiter and its four largest moons through the dome telescope, since they were gracious enough to offer free peeks.

All in all it was a great experience. Thanks again to everyone that set up, ran, and spoke at the conference!

By the way: if anyone wants to page through more of my work, or read a couple of chapters on my processing techniques, I have a book called “Photon Recon” available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Photon-Recon…/dp/B0DTJVD4VT. One of my astronomy friends wrote the foreword.

My book has been published!

admin

Just over three years ago my eyes were opened to the world of astronomy. Observing the rings of Saturn for the first time from my own backyard using a couple hundred dollar refractor was exhilarating!

I immediately wanted to share the image with family and friends. I tried holding my cell phone over the eyepiece and soon discovered how touchy image acquisition is. So, I purchased a bracket to hold my cellphone in place to take the photo.

That was the beginning to my journey into the astrophotography hobby. A handful of equipment upgrades later I am capturing deep sky nebulae, galaxies, planets, comets and the moon!

I still enjoy sharing the results of the work with anyone that is interested. My wonderful wife saw how much I enjoy sharing the images & experiences, and she suggested that I produce a book. She offered to fund the publishing process as a Christmas present in 2024.

The endeavor took about two months to pull it all together and get it approved by the publisher. The first edition is now available on Amazon!

It is titled, “Photon Recon“.

I hope everyone enjoys the photos, and that it helps others interested in this hobby understand what can be achieved from their very own backyard.

Jupiter in Motion

Jupiter in Motion

admin

The opposition of Jupiter was December 7, 2024. On the night before the skies finally cleared up and seeing was average. Clouds did roll in later that night, but I was able to get my C14 set up, in focus, and on target prior to capturing just over an hour of sixty second videos.

The best frames of each video were stacked to produce a single image. Each of the 59 images were then processed to produce the time lapse video shown above.

As a bonus, one of Jupiter’s largest moons, Europa, was just beginning to transit across in front of Jupiter. The moon and it’s shadow can be seen in the video.

Let’s do this!

admin

Welcome to PhotonRecon! I wanted to pick a name for my astrophotography endeavor, but most of the cool ones were already taken.

How did I come up with a name like “Photon Recon”?

Well, the process of taking photos of deep space objects is basically collecting photons. These light particles hit the camera sensor and it, in turn, builds up a charge. The more photons accumulated, the brighter the pixel. There’s more to it, but I’ve already gone too deep into the nerdy stuff.

Then there’s the act of finding the deep space objects. Reconnaissance – “a preliminary survey to gain information”, usually used in a military scenario. This can be done be researching online, reading books on astronomy, randomly looking around the sky, using an app to zoom into sections of space to see what targets might be available, etc.

The name actually corresponds to my life in a way. I am a nerd by profession, with a masters degree in engineering. I am also a fighter in that I have always been drawn to physical competition. Wrestling, Rugby, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu have taken up the majority of my free time outside of work.

So, PhotonRecon is kind of like the nerd meets Rambo. 🙂