Paul Cézanne's Astronomy Observing Reports

As you know, I love my Canon 15×50IS binoculars. So much so that I bought some 10×30IS for my wife for bird watching, replacing her junky Tasco zoom ones that I got for “Free” because I stayed at my job for 5 years… :- ) I spent about 30 minutes comparing them this evening, trying [...]

I just ran some tests on Bill Burgess’s new CED1, the Contrast Enhanced Diagonal. Here are the results.
Conditions: Dreadful!  CSC showed dark blue for cloud cover, light blue for transparency, grey for seeing. Winds 18mph gusting to 28! 44% humidity, 32 degrees F.
Equipment: Burgess 1278 refractor, Moonlight focuser, Burgess 30mm Paragon, 9mm Planetary, 6mm Planetary II.
Diagonals: Burgess [...]

If you are really into astrophotography you should just click away. Here I’m documenting my first real forays into astrophotography and the results are pretty awful. I know a lot of stuff I can do and I probably will do some of it. But I have no real desire to dive into that world, I [...]

Ok, it is 25 degrees F (-4 C) and the moon is waxing gibbous with 78% of the Moon’s visible disk illuminated which translates as “too bright and too cold.” Indeed, the thin covering of snow on the ground made it seem even brighter. I didn’t cast a shadow, I casted a strong shadow.
So why [...]

After reading my post from a few days ago, where I remarked that I saw one M so dim that:
that made me despair that I’ll be able to find all the M’s with my binoculars, that one was hard even in the 5″ refractor.
my friend Steve Forbes said that it was probably M77. Indeed it was. I [...]

I’ve been looking for transportation cases for a few weeks now. I want to protect my 6″ Edmunds Scientific reflector as well as my ASGT head.
I bought a Black and Decker toolbox for the ASGT about a year ago but that broke about the third time I used it. It was made of cheap plastic [...]

If you are a reader of my blog, you surely already know about the beautiful conjunction that happened today. The crescent moon, Venus and Jupiter were within 2 degrees of each other. On the east coast of the USA, the Moon appeared to the left of Venus. In Asia Pacific, however, they made a smiley face! Here’s [...]