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Posts Tagged ‘Rogers Observatory’

Ephemeris: 07/05/2024 – GTAS meeting: processing astrophotographs

July 5, 2024 Comments off

This is Ephemeris for Friday, July 5th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 26 minutes, setting at 9:30, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:04. The Moon is new today, and won’t be visible.

Tonight’s meeting of the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society at Northwestern Michigan College’s Rogers observatory, which starts at 9 PM tonight, will feature a talk by Dan Dall’Olmo, one of our successful astrophotographers in the society. He will discuss image processing. Taking the picture is only the beginning. He will show how to bring out and sharpen images taken with digital cameras. Back in my day processing photographs involved chemicals in the darkroom. “I love the smell of Hypo in the morning”. Now it involves computers and software. Afterward if it’s, clear we’ll be viewing the sky. Note the later start time for the meeting. We follow the later sunsets this time of year, so viewing starts after sunset. The observatory is located south of Traverse City on Birmley Rd. Between Garfield and Keystone roads.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT–4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Here are a couple of Dan’s photographs of celestial objects visible this time of year. The eaw images do not look this good, hence the image processing to bring out the image brightness and detail.

Trifid Nebula
Messier 20 or M20 the Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius. Click or tap on the image to enlarge it. Credit Dan Dall’Olmo.
The Summer Triangle and the Milky Way
The Summer Triangle of the three brightest stars in this image, as if it was overheaad and one is facing south.. At the top is Deneb in Cygnus the swan, who’s other stars are overpowered by the Milky Way. Just to the left of Deneb is the North American Nebula in red. On the left is Vega in Lyra the harp. Its parallelogram of stars can seen below it. At the bottom is Altair in Aquila the eagle which is flanked by two stars. Crossing through the Summer Triangle is the Milky Way with the dark clouds of the Great Rift bisecting it. Click or tap on the image to enlarge it. Credit Dan Dall’Olmo.
Categories: Ephemeris Program, GTAS Outreach Event, Star Party Tags: , , ,

05/04/2018 – Ephemeris – Tonight I present Venus from the mists of time to today

May 4, 2018 Comments off

Ephemeris for Friday, May 4th. The Sun rises at 6:28. It’ll be up for 14 hours and 23 minutes, setting at 8:51. The Moon, 3 days before last quarter, will rise at 1:15 tomorrow morning.

The planet Venus is our evening star now. I’ve been talking about it on this program lately. Want to hear and see more? Tonight at 8 p.m. at the May meeting of the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society at Northwestern Michigan College’s Rogers Observatory, I will be giving an illustrated talk: Venus from the mists of time to today. To the early Greeks it was two planets. To the Maya it was a calendar. In the 18th century it was a way to measure the size of the solar system. Today, it could be what our future looks like. After the meeting, at 9 p.m. the society will host a star party to view the planets Venus and Jupiter. The observatory is located south of Traverse City on Birmley Road between Garfield and Keystone roads.

The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Venus section of the Dresden Codex

5 Pages of the Dresden Codex produced by the Maya tracking Venus’ appearances in the skies over the Yucatan. for 104 years. The Dresden Codex is one of only 4 surviving Mayan Codices.

Categories: Astronomical History, Ephemeris Program, GTAS Outreach Event, Venus Tags: , ,