Yesterday and a day before that, eyes around the world - have been watching the sky more often. NASA's atmospeheric satellite UARS has been lowering in its orbit, and burned (partially?) in the atmospehere. Some of the biggers part may have survived to fall into ground. Not sure where the debris has been landed to. Here is the NASA update:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/uars/index.html
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Imaging laptop, setup continues...
Most of the astronomy related software is already installed, some still to-do. Hopefully job is completed, within one week (no real hurry since I do this after my daily work hours)
Also ordered an AC / DC combo adapter, to use my ThinkBad laptop on the field with 12V battery system. I had a good old Targus DC -adapter, too bad there was no proper "tip" available for my new laptop model.
Also ordered an AC / DC combo adapter, to use my ThinkBad laptop on the field with 12V battery system. I had a good old Targus DC -adapter, too bad there was no proper "tip" available for my new laptop model.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
New imaging laptop
Since time is passing by, and my oldie faithful laptop (IBM T43) almost dying, it was time to get new one. Smaller and lighter Lenovo Thinkpad EDGE 11" lies now on the table.
Following days will be spent by installing win7 and all the required software. First thoughts of the laptop are pretty ok, but a clear minus is from the special keys in the keyboard. PgUp / PgDn too small, not responding well. Also Delete and Insert keys are tricky to use, maybe since I have used to larger keys in older IBM laptops. Normal keys with alphabets - those are responding well. Markings on the function keys, is too difficult to find in low lightning (since used red text).
Compared to old laptop with win XP, the startup and shutdown times are totally different. I do not have to wait for 5 minutes for the computer to start, and couple of minutes to shut down.
Basic laptop specs are:
Lenovo Thinkpad EDGE 11
Display size 11"
System memory 4GB
Windows 7 Pro 64 bit
Intel core i3 processor
Following days will be spent by installing win7 and all the required software. First thoughts of the laptop are pretty ok, but a clear minus is from the special keys in the keyboard. PgUp / PgDn too small, not responding well. Also Delete and Insert keys are tricky to use, maybe since I have used to larger keys in older IBM laptops. Normal keys with alphabets - those are responding well. Markings on the function keys, is too difficult to find in low lightning (since used red text).
Compared to old laptop with win XP, the startup and shutdown times are totally different. I do not have to wait for 5 minutes for the computer to start, and couple of minutes to shut down.
Basic laptop specs are:
Lenovo Thinkpad EDGE 11
Display size 11"
System memory 4GB
Windows 7 Pro 64 bit
Intel core i3 processor
Start of aurora season
Two messages about auroras and both sides of the summer... It maybe (?) is a sign that nights are getting darker. Last friday/saturday night, there was a good display at Espoo.
Peak of the show happened little bit before 1am, lasting about 10 minutes. Auroras were easily seen on the northern sky. They were expanding all the way between NW and NE sky. Greenish curtain showed approx in 20 degrees height, all the way up to near zenith. Little movements were visible and vertical "bars" rised to zenith over the curtain.
I messed up with my camera, so no photos this time. Nice aurora disply, still...
Peak of the show happened little bit before 1am, lasting about 10 minutes. Auroras were easily seen on the northern sky. They were expanding all the way between NW and NE sky. Greenish curtain showed approx in 20 degrees height, all the way up to near zenith. Little movements were visible and vertical "bars" rised to zenith over the curtain.
I messed up with my camera, so no photos this time. Nice aurora disply, still...
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Auroras at Espoo
Yesterday evening and last night - there was a faint auroral belt on the northern sky of Espoo city. The belt rise approximately to 25 degrees. It looked like fuzzy / diffuse arc. It was visible all the way from the northeast to nortwest part of sky.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Course on DSRL astrophotography
Back at home, after a weekend at Hauho. There we spent a nice weekend, with other enthusiastic colleagues.
Some info sessions were held on image processing technology. One session that was most most important for me, was held by Petri Kehusmaa. Also other items were covered, like stacking of the images and softaware details - with AviStack, RegiStax and IRIS.
I enjoyed of being there, and got many new ideas and tricks to use in my own astronomy hobby. Thanks for the organisers, lecturers and colleagues for the good weekend.
PS:
The collimation result is not the most important thing, it's the high quality time spent doing that on a good company :-)
Some info sessions were held on image processing technology. One session that was most most important for me, was held by Petri Kehusmaa. Also other items were covered, like stacking of the images and softaware details - with AviStack, RegiStax and IRIS.
I enjoyed of being there, and got many new ideas and tricks to use in my own astronomy hobby. Thanks for the organisers, lecturers and colleagues for the good weekend.
PS:
The collimation result is not the most important thing, it's the high quality time spent doing that on a good company :-)
Nacreous clouds
I had nice suprise, when I was returning to Espoo from "digikuvaajat" meeting held at Hauho. Sun was setting behing the treelines, and sky was colourful. Low in the sky at direction of sunset, there was some wavy clouds visible. Nacreous clouds !!! It is first time for spotting them in 2011. Latest really beutiful nacreous clouds, I have seen man years ago (too long in my opinion). If I correctly remember, it was 1995.
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