Astronomy Hobby

 Here we go again; wasting my time with a new interest. I bought a telescope and have started learning more about the star gazing. Just can't seem to settle on an all-consuming hobby. Guitar, Photography, Painting, Running, Writing, Travel. Retirement has given me more free time than I can handle. 😀

I can't think of WHY.  It was just another whim. I bought a small telescope and started learning about space-time and all that is happening in the heavens above. Google opened a new world (universe) and has provided hours of educational reading. I now know the name of a few stars and several constellations. The more I learn the more I want to know. I wish I had purchased a better telescope. 😏

My first image was of the moon. I took this with my smart phone camera. Just like now, fiddling with blogger, I was experimenting. An adapter for attaching a cell phone came with the telescope package.  Enough of that. I could have taken the same image with a long lens on my Canon.

I've been most interested in planets and deep space. I found Saturn and was able to distinguish the rings -- not in much detail but I could see the separation of the rings from the planet. 

And, Jupiter is interesting with its many moons. I've tuned in several times to view the four most evident moons in a different position each night. I can't see the planet in enough detail to distinguish colors or the red spot. Seeing such detail is going to incur a modest investment. Perhaps, even more than modest. 😊

Mars was just an insignificant bright spot in my small (4-inch aperture) telescope. I was excited to see it and was able to see why it is referred to as the Red Planet. But it was too boring to really lock into. I tried bringing it closer by using an eye piece with more magnification. That made it hard to track. With the Earth spinning at more than a thousand miles an hour, Mars zipped across the small field of view. 

Each night brings a different set of images in the sky. Over the past month, Jupiter and Saturn were the objects of most interest. They were visible without having to get up in the wee hours to view. Mars came along later and Venus and Mercury have been visible in the very early morning -- like 4:30am.

More recently, I have found star clusters -- both Open Clusters and Globular Clusters. Google searches have taught me that clusters are where stars are being born. You might find it more interesting by doing your own Google search. I did. 😊

I've also found a few Galaxies but haven't been able to really tell much about them. I downloaded a free software package, Stellarium for Windows, that keeps me informed about what to see and when. It also goes into much detail and has the capability to search for objects of interest. 

There is so much more of this to discover. I am looking forward to December. Jupiter and Saturn will form their next conjunction on December 21 of 2020. Click on the link below to learn more about the conjunction.

https://www.astrology.com/article/great-conjunction-saturn-conjunct-jupiter-in-aquarius-2020

Returning to the Pond - Walden Pond

 Walden Pond; I haven't been here in a long time --- YEARS!

This will be a short entry. Posting an entry has changed so much over the years that I am simply babbling in an effort to learn what I have forgotten, or to learn what has changed?

Thought I would throw in a picture of the flight crew from my 1963 tour in Vietnam. It was early. We had only four airplanes and a very small crew. This image includes everyone, pilots, maintenance crew, and equipment operators. Our mission was to monitor and locate enemy communication devices.

The actual purpose of inserting the image was simply to learn how. Pretty simple. It has changed considerably over the years -- for the better.

By the way, I am sitting in front row, first on the left.

Back to the present; I am watching election news and wondering whatever happened to the democracy that I was defending during my more than thirty years in the much maligned Intelligence Community -- including two tours in Vietnam and more than ten years developing and documenting state of the art intelligence collection systems.

Enough of that. Here's to more interesting posts from around the Pond.

l8r