Fremont Peak Observatory

Note the two distinct populations of stars, yellow and blue, the blue stars are known as blue stragglers, possibly resulting from interactions between two or more stars in close proximity, but there are several explanations. See the Wikipedia article for more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_straggler -

The Orionids are peaking! This is a great meteor shower because it's visible from anywhere on Earth. While the meteors are extremely fast and on the faint side, many of them leave persistent trains that last for a few seconds after the meteor is gone. Let us know if you catch any!

Our next virtual event is Tuesday Oct 20th at 4pm. Other Worlds: How we will study them - What we hope to find. Planets around other stars are not just the do...main of science fiction anymore. Over the past quarter century astronomers have gone from no knowledge of planets around other stars to being able to say how common or rare they are (spoiler: they’re common). Are any of these planets habitable? To learn this we need to develop improved telescopes and instrumentation. I will describe how a specialized technique called adaptive optics will enable us to study planets and speculate what we might find. Zoom link: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/98932317498 See more

The new south sill installed and finished, new room paint

blue sky sunset after the first work day in awhile

West coast smoke drawn into Pacific system, comes back as Godzilla, attacks Portland, San Francisco, and LA https://twitter.com/afreedma/status/1304465761625350146?s=21

Many colourful stars are packed close together in this Picture of the Week featuring the globular cluster NGC 1805, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.... This tight grouping of thousands of stars is located near the edge of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way. The stars orbit closely to one another, like bees swarming around a hive. In the dense centre of one of these clusters, stars are 100 to 1000 times closer together than the nearest stars are to our Sun, making planetary systems around them unlikely. Image credit: ESA - European Space Agency / Hubble Space Telescope / NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration , J. Kalirai http://orlo.uk/vgLJA

Jupiter transiting this time, again thanks to Ryan Clark for his pretty good footage just before this week of storms and fires.

Transit of Saturn across the eyepiece of one member’s fixed 16 reflector. The planet moves along with the Earth’s rotation. (frame rate sped up, video from Monterey courtesy of Ryan Clark)

Rich in bright meteors and fireballs, the Perseids meteor shower is one of the best of the year and it peaks on Aug. 11-12. Here are tips on how to watch it: https://go.nasa.gov/2XEcuSC : NASA/Bill Ingalls

under the fog hat

the shutter rolls in, taming local city lights.. hope for our long term viability as an observatory holds

A last look at NEOWISE fading behind our recent fire smoke with a 14 mpx point and shoot