05.19.03 - Ballauer Observatory Article Posted

Well, I finally finished Part Two of my article on Roll-off Roof Observatory construction.  This part details the actual process of the construction of my own observatory complete with pictures.  

Click here to go directly to the second article, or you can access it from the main Observatory Page.

  05.18.03 - Texas Star Party 2003 Report

TSP 2002 gave mixed emotions of sorts.  While I greatly enjoyed hanging out with good people and talking astronomy for a week, the weather was simply awful.  30 mph dust winds during the day, all day, and clouds upon clouds each night except one.  

Well, I'm happy to report that the winds subsided and the clouds cleared for all but part of one night at TSP 2003.  When you combine that with more of the same good people and some great speakers during the week...

I have a 7.5 hour drive from Azle, Texas, to Prude Guest Ranch just outside of Fort Davis, Texas, in the Davis mountains. I got there a bit early as you can see from the photo so I had to wait until the gates opened. But after getting in and spending the day setting up camp I was prepared for the first night's session.  Of course I spent the first night getting good polar alignment with my LX200 since a week of photography would require some level of precision in this area.  In between iterations of the drive unit I managed to catch of glimpses of all the popular winter time objects before they reached the western horizon.  Orion, clearly visible all the way to the horizon where the stars just seemed to disappear, offered some early evening views, as did the open clusters in Auriga and the objects of Monoceros, Canis Major, and Perseus.  Throughout the week, M42 and the double cluster would signal the night's beginning and the rise of M31 would introduce twilight's morning glow.  After getting good alignment and checking out a few objects I turned in at midnight to catch up on my rest from the long trip.

Since I'm in half decent shape, and wanted to stay that way, I brought my road bike for some exercise.  Since my friend, Kirk, brought his bike as well we decided to take a morning trip up to the McDonald's Observatory some 12 miles UP the mountain.  Bad mistake.  Half way there, the combination of the thin air and steady climbing had me pretty well bonked.  I turned around to coast back to camp while Kirk, who has about 20 years on me, continued to the top.  I spent the next two days trying to recover from my altitude sickness while also suffering from the severe hit to my pride. Needless to say I didn't spend a whole lot of time underneath the stars that night.  Same goes for Tuesday night when the only clouds of the week dominated the sky until 3 AM.  Of course by Wednesday morning, I'd fully recovered and started feeling pretty good...just in time for the daily astronomy talks.

As I said, this year's TSP featured some pretty terrific guest speakers. Attilla Danko, creator of the Dark Sky Clock, came down from Canada to enlighten us on why he hates clouds so much, which is fortunate because it motivated him to create a pretty valuable tool to our hobby.  Stephen James O'Meara was also present during the entire week to discuss the exclusion of the Perseus Double Cluster from the Messier catalog as well as to dispel some of the myths surrounding Messier himself.  BTW, I highly recommend his new book, The Caldwell Objects, the next book in his series, "Deep-Sky Companions."   Houston astronomer Larry Mitchell gave his usual presentation of advanced observing object, this year's theme being Planetary Nebulae.  Sun Kwok added to this theme in his evening session, having previously written the excellent book, Cosmic Butterflies: The Colorful Mysteries of Planetary Nebulae.  One of my favorites, Robert Reeves, was present once again to show some astrophotos taken from the International Space Station by his astronaut friend.  But of course the highlight of the week was the final talk by David Levy where he described his life as an observer over the last 4 decades.  All in all, some pretty great talks.

Of course one of the great things about TSP is that there is always something to do during the day.  If not interested in listening to the speakers, which begin mid-week, you can always spend some time at McDonald's Observatory, Davis Mountains State Park, or at nearby Alpine and Marfa.  I spent some time this year with Kirk at the State Park where photography of the wildlife was easy pickings.  

Or, you can spend time walking around the vendor's area.  Coronado was present once again with their h-alpha setups for our use.  Maybe next year I'll be able to afford one.  Then there was swap-day, where TSPers sell a wide variety of stuff they just have to get rid of.  Of course, I helped out by taking an SBIG ST-7e off someone's hands.  The vendors were good to me as well having sold me a nice Orion full aperture solar filter for my 10" LX200 and a Televue SCT adapter for the excellent Lumicon Lumibrite 2" diagonal that I purchased a year before.

Anyway, with my health restored I knew my last 3 nights under the stars would be long ones.  I began my program of astrophotography on the LX-200 on Wednesday night and took photos from dusk to dawn over the next three nights.  I fought over getting my Meade 208xt autoguider to work with my Lumicon Giant Easy Guider and ended up with a bunch of exposures with trailed stars and smudged galaxies.  But I had little problems using the 208xt through the scope while I piggybacked my 300mm Nikkor lens on top of it.  The focus of the Nikkor lens is a bit loose, however, a problem that I'll have to remedy.  A few otherwise killer shots didn't achieve the accurate focus I'm accustomed to, something I have to attribute to a sliding focus ring. However, my Astro Showcase gallery shows the overall positive results with this combination of equipment.

While photographing using my main scope, I put my Fujinon 16x70s to work, knocking out John Wagoner's Binocular Observing list for a TSP pin. Of course in these dark skies there is not much you can't see with a nice pair of binoculars.  Some of the more outstanding objects were Omega Centauri and NGC 5128 (Centaurus A) in Centaurus; globular clusters M2,M3, M4, M5, M10, M12, M13, M15, M22, and M55; open clusters Mel 111, M44, NGC 6231, 6268, 6281, M6, M7, M11, M23, M25, M29, M39, M52, and the Coathanger-Cr399; emission nebulae M8, M16, M17, M20; and the planetary nebula, M27, the Dumbbell.  

As a bonus, I was lucky enough to catch some views of DSOs from Kirk's 13.1" inch Coulter Dob and my friend Don's 20" Astro Systems Dob.  It seems that Don in particular was very interested in showing me just about everything he had dialed up and I'm thankful for every view.  The seeing was excellent on most all nights allowing for some pretty high magnifications. Personal favorites like edge-on galaxies M104, NGC 891 and NGC 4565 showed great detail at higher mags. Planetary nebulae NGC 2438, in the middle of M46, and NGC 3242, the Ghost of Jupiter, were bright and stunning.  Galaxies M51 and M81showed their entire spiral structure, including the connecting bridge from M51 to its companion NGC 5195.  All in all, I was very lucky to have some friends next to me willing to share their views.  When you devote yourself to astrophotography with your own scope you either need another scope or a friend.  It's good to have a friend...or two.

Nighttime temperatures were in the upper 30s on most nights, the results of which were excellent transparency.  Once again, these skies were very dark and I must state once again how important this is.  Small scopes are FAR from useless in these dark and stable skies.  There is not a Messier or Caldwell object that you couldn't see here with a 3" refractor, at least those objects that aren't too far south.  Framing galaxies in my camera is easy... simply look through the viewfinder for the correct orientation.

Anyway, after the Levy speech on the last night and the awarding of door prizes I headed back home, skipping out on the last night of observing.  I had already accomplished what I had set out to do anyway.  Of course beginning a 7.5 hour trip home at 10 PM is not a really good idea.  Four all-nighters in a row is pretty rough, even on a night owl like me.  Needless to say I made it home safely, hopped up on several cups of coffee and Dr. Pepper.  The sacrifices I make for this hobby!

  05.16.03 - SGBNR 1.0.9 beta Software Released

Sometimes you are just thankful for free things.  This is one of the best!  I was recently introduced to this terriffic freeware.  As its developer Pleiades Astrophoto describes it, "SGBNR is an image-processing program for noise reduction specialized in astrophotography. SGBNR is a 32-bit application running on the Microsoft® Windows® 9x/NT4/2000/XP operating systems, designed to fight against film grain in digitized astrophotos and background noise in CCD images."

How well does it work?  Unbelievably well!  Never seen anything that can compare.  I have just run all my Astro Showcase images through it simply using the default settings.  It works by performing a highly specialized gaussian blur on the image thereby reducing grain in films or compression artifacts in lossy images like jpegs and allows further detail to be seen through, effectively raising the signal and lowering the noise.  It can be downloaded here.  Read the download instructions well because it does require some additional files (downloadable from that page) to make it work.

Likewise, for you LX200 owners, look at the bottom of that same downloads page.  It's a LX200 Remote Control Panel for control of the scope through the RS-232 interface computer connection.  It functions exactly like the hand controller, including the ability to access the entire LX200 object library.  And yes, it too is free!  

  05.15.03 - Ballauer Observatory Clear Sky Clock

Thanks to Attilla Danko, creator of the Clear Sky Clock, I have a new Clear Sky Clock specific to my location at the Ballauer Observatory. Its on the Observatory page here.

Just click on the clock and read the information about how you can get one of your own.  He made mine within hours.  Be sure to spread the word about this great tool.  It's more accurate than any other tool at our disposal.

VERY COOL!  But it looks bad for tomorrow night's lunar eclipse.

  05.14.03 - New Equipment Announcement!

Well, I came back from TSP with an SBIG ST-7E.  It was just calling out to me :-}  Unfortunately it means that I no longer have a need for the Meade 208xt that I picked up just prior to TSP.  I was just getting the hang of it too!  If interested in buying it for around $290 (with shipping), just let me know.  I'll be putting it on Astromart pretty soon.

I also picked up the Meade #647 Flip Mirror and an Orion full aperture solar filter.  I've managed to fool around with all three of these goodies and I definitely like the early results.  I'll have to devise a way to use the flip mirror with my JMI zero-shift focuser though.  I can't make all the connections yet. The SBIG software, both CCDOPS and CCD Soft, are very intuitive.  Just as I was getting the hang of it the other night the clouds rolled in!  Will try to do some first light shots come new moon.

I've updated the My Equipment page to reflect my recent acquisitions.

Speaking of the moon, don't forget Thursday night's full lunar eclipse.  If the weather cooperates, I hope to have some good shots of it.  I'll feature them in the Astro Showcase in the event that I get lucky :-}

  05.13.03 - E200 Images posted to Astro Showcase

I've posted the second set of astrophotos from TSP to the site in my Astro Showcase.   This role of E200 wasn't as successful as the role of RG400, but I still got a few interesting shots.  The M8 & M20 turned out better on E200 and has replaced the previous one on RG400. The IC1396 nebula and cluster in Cephus is included here (which I'm pretty pleased with).  A shot of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster is here as well.  How many galaxies can you count?  Four new Milky Way shots are included as well and I hope to put them in a mosaic pretty soon.

I'll have to write up a comparison review of the E200 and RG400 film performance.  It's interesting to see the two M8 shots side by side to see how good the E200 shoots red nebulosity.  But the E200 sure stinks on blue response.  The Virgo Cluster should have been much more saturated for that length of exposure.  I also took a prime focus shot of M51 that would have been great had I not used E200.  RG400 would have been the better film for galaxies because it has a better color balance.

  05.05.03 - Back from the Texas Star Party!

Yes, I made it back in one piece.  After pulling 4 all nighters in a row to end the week I now need a vacation from my vacation!

 I've posted the first set of astrophotos from TSP to the site in a new Astro Showcase.  This special gallery will feature thematic pictures from time to time including guest photos on occasion.  For now, you just get my images from TSP 2003.  Stay tuned as I've got E200 images still being developed and I will add them to the Astro Showcase if they turn out.

I purchased some new equipment at TSP that I'd like to tell you about.  Just give me a little bit of time.

In a day or so I'll post my report of TSP 2003.  But in the meantime let me thank those people who made my week so much fun:

Kirk - Great fun for the second straight year.  You had to leave a bit early in the week and missed a great last few days and nights.  Thanks for being great company!

Tom - My dinner companion and brother.  It was wonderful getting to know you so well.  I look forward to sharing correspondence in the future, especially as we talk about astrophotography, birding, or faith.  

Bob and Bill - You two guys are great!  Thanks for being so interested in me and so kind.  I was so glad to see you at TSP for the second straight year.  I'm looking forward to more in the future.  Oh, and congrats to Bob on winning the 13mm Nagler door prize and to Bill on winning the observing log.  I had space cleared out in my SUV for the grand price LX90, but I'm just not very lucky.

Don - My fellow FWAS friend who set up his 20" Astro Systems dob right next to me.  Trust me, Don.  You were not annoying me when you insisted upon me taking looks at the objects you dialed up through your scope!  I couldn't have been more lucky to get some great visual views through your scope while shooting pictures through mine.  Views of planetary nebula NGC 2438 in the middle of M46 through your scope were highlights of the trip.

BIll and Lori - You are very sweet people.  Thanks for spending some time with me.  Your smiles made my week.

Dave - Just met you but I feel like we are kindred spirits.  Providence is at work.  I enjoyed sharing the skies with you.

  04.26.03 - Leaving for the Texas Star Party!

Off to the dark country!   I will not be around this week to update the web page.  Stay tuned until a week or so for my report on the PARTY!

Have a great week.

jay

  04.23.03 - New equipment received

Just got some new equipment delivered today.  The first is the Nikon 300mm ED f2.8 lens I previously mentioned and that is shown on the My Equipment page.  It should work well with the Nikon TC-14B 1.4x teleconverter that is on the way.  I am excited to try this combination on some piggyback objects.

But when you do piggyback work with lenses over ~200mm in focal length you need to start worrying about guiding your exposures.  As you can see from many of the black and white images in my Deep Sky Gallery I once owned the best of autoguiders, the SBIG STV, which I sold last year. Nothing wrong with the STV, but it's a little too expensive to serve as an autoguider and too lacking as an imager, in my opinion (I'll try to write a full review on it very soon but in the meantime I'll refer you to this month's Astronomy Magazine for their review of the versatile, though expensive imager/autoguider).  

Therefore, I took delivery of a Meade 208 XT today.  Hopefully it will fulfill the autoguiding requirements I have for a fraction of the cost of the STV.  It can also be used as an imager as well but I doubt I can do a whole lot with an 8-bit,  336 x 242 pixel CCD.  I'll let you know what I think of it after putting through its paces at next week's Texas Star Party.

  04.22.03 - Subtitle Change

If you look closely at the subtitle to this page, I've made a slight change. What once said "Serving both Amateur Astronomers and Astrophotographers" now says "Serving both Backyard Observers and Astrophotographers."

The change was brought about by a discussion we began over at astronomy.com forums concerning the nature of what it is we do.  Some of us amateurs like to place a scientific emphasis on what is done in this hobby.  Many are active in asteroid or comet searches, variable star and novae monitoring, or even spectroscopy.  And that is fine.  If you can find that kind of meaning, as astronomy being primarily "science," then that is certainly a good thing!  In that case, I hope the next comet has your name on it.

But I write this to let you know that this web page, and my interest in the hobby, has little to do with science.  For me, astronomy is a hobby, a pastime, where art plays a larger role than science.  So, I think referring to myself as a "Backyard Observer" is more suitable.  Likewise, I'm not so much concerned about "true color" in my astroimages as much as I am about making pretty pictures.  As long as I get the colors close, that's fine with me.

For those visiting All About Astro.com expecting to see scientific aspects of the hobby, well...sorry to disappoint you.  So perhaps this page will never quite be "all about astro."  Perhaps I will branch into more of a scientific approach in the future.  I do have some interest and knowledge in this area. But for now I just wish to emphasize the fun, beauty, and art of this hobby. Certainly, that's not a bad thing!

  04.18.03 - Lumicon back on line...

Among my collection of Lumicon-brand equipment is their Giant Easy Guider, 2" Lumibrite diagonal, both OIII and H-Beta filters, and an H-Alpha broadband photographic filter.  When you add to that all the hypered Tech Pan film purchases I've made, I figure I've spent in the neighborhood of a grand at Lumicon over the past couple of years.  Their equipment is top notch and they are the only source of hypered film available (they hold the patent).  

Ever since they closed, I've kept the most recent store catalog within arms reach of my john for fond remembrance of items that I hoped to purchase someday from Lumicon, such as one of their film hypering chambers or perhaps one of their new H-Alpha Solar Prominence filters.

So when it was announced that Lumicon would be coming back with a little help from Parks Optical, nobody was more thrilled than me.  The website is finally on line and looks pretty good (click here to see).

But while you are looking around take a quick glimpse at some of the prices.  Here, let me list some for you:

Kodak D-19 Developer (1 Gal.): ~ $6.00 @ B&H Photo....$19.99 @ Lumicon
Kodak Tech Pan 2415 (hypered): $13.95 (before closing)...$19.99 (now)
Lumicon Model 300 Film Hyper Kit: $325 (before closing)...$350 (now)

Now, I'm accustomed to "Grand Opening" (or in this case grand RE-opening) sales, but this borders on craziness.  I'm going to give Lumicon, or Parks Optical, the benefit of the doubt that perhaps these prices have been posted a bit prematurely and that we can expect the proper changes to be made, but if not it seems to me that they will soon price themselves right back out of business.

I understand a slight increase in the prices of items that are unique to Lumicon such as their hypered film/kits.  Demand would dictate that prices can and should be raised slightly.  But the change should be only SLIGHT. Afterall, they obviously didn't sell enough of these items at the lower prices prior to shutting their doors!  It's also a bit insulting to think I'd pay $20 for a packet of D-19 developer that I can purchase for less than $8 just down the road.  

Fortunately, the prices of their excellent filters have remained the same. Smart thing because they have some competition in these areas.

But, hopefully, Lumicon will take a second look at some of their prices.  If not, I'll have to make my own hypering chamber and get my Tech Pan from B&H.  

I'd hate to see them go out of business...again.

  04.15.03 - Beware Kodak RG400

Upon perusing the APML archives yesterday, I stumbled upon some interesting information. Many know that Kodak Royal Gold 400 film is my favorite color negative emulsion because of its high red sensitivity. Well, it may have gone unnoticed that Kodak changed its emulsion for its Kodak Royal Gold 400 film a few months ago.  So let the astrophotographer beware if he or she picks up RG400 film from the store and ends up with some crummy astrophotos.

To make matters worse, Kodak has recently discontinued RG400 and Supra film and have combined them into a new emulsion, a "Royal Supra," also lacking in red response.  The new film should be replacing both RG emulsions on store shelves very soon, if not already.

And to make matters even worse than that, Kodak is also fiddling with its E200 slide film as well.  No word yet if astrophotographers are getting the short end of the stick.

Oh, and the same goes for Royal Gold 200 film as well.  First changed, then gone.

So what's to do?

Dealers may still have Royal Gold 200/400 on the shelves. If they don't, then you'll know its been replaced by the "Royal Supra."  You might want to stock up on the old stuff.  But be sure you know the difference between it and the changed emulsion.  Simple...the old Royal Gold is known as the "Select Series."  It's written on the box.  The changed emulsion is simply "Royal Gold."  

For those who have shot RG400 recently and wonder if it was the older, better emulsion simply look along the sprockets of your negatives.  The older emulsion will be marked "Royal 400-3."  The new film will say "Royal 400-4."  Of course, if you did shoot with the new stuff accidently you probably already know it doesn't work because of the results.

To see a comparison of both the old and new RG400 emulsions, check out Patrick Freeman's site here.

Lucky for me, I didn't get stuck with shooting the new stuff unknowingly. I've still got a couple of roles of the good stuff in the refrigerator.  Looks like I'll have to stock up a bit more.

  04.14.03 - New Equipment Announcement

I have always had an interest in photography, though never enough to have the camera equipment of my dreams.  I fondly remember looking through my Popular Photography magazines as a child while thinking about how cool that Nikon F camera looked, if only I could afford it's hefty price tag.  I made that dream complete with the purchase of a used Nikon F2 two years ago (bought specifically for astrophotography, otherwise I'd have bought an F5).  I have some decent lenses to go with it, but none I would consider professional quality...until now.

I am awaiting delivery of a used Nikkor 300mm ED-IF f2.8 telephoto lens and matching Nikon TC-14B 1.4x teleconverter.  The extra-low dispersion (ED) glass and extremely fast speeds will make it quite a fine astro lens, comparable in quality to a nice, small focal length apochromatic refractor. With the 1.4x teleconverter, I will have a 420mm, f4 system with zero-image degradation.  I hope to add the Nikon TC-301 2x teleconverter very soon which will also give me a 600mm, f5.6 option. Suddenly, a load of new piggyback objects comes within grasp and I hope to come back from the Texas Star Party with some fine photos. 

More photos have been added to the Deep Sky Gallery including color piggyback shots of Orion's Belt and The Beehive Cluster/Jupiter near conjunction.  A hypered Tech Pan image of M16 and other SBIG STV shots of Omega Centauri, the Sombrero Galaxy, and M82 have been added complete with descriptions and exposure information.

  04.02.03 - Messier Marathon report

Saturday night was the night when I along with 5 others from FWAS prepared for a night of Messiers.  A cold front blew through and cleared out the sky nicely, though lights from the Texas Motor Speedway (race week) some 25 - 30 miles away (!) really lit up our normally dark sky site. It was just enough light to make the early toughies even tougher.  M74 and M77 were simply not visible.  And you know it's bad when you can't see M31 through your finder.  I had to look through the scope to find it. Not good when M32 and M110 are on your list as well.  M33, forget it. M76 was barely seen.  Fortunately, the skies began to darken quite a bit around 11 PM but by then the cold front had it full effect on us.  Since we'd missed out on so many of the early objects, and because we'd seen so many good ones, we all decided to abandon the 29 degree weather at around midnight.   

Incidently, I used my LX200 manually with my finderscope to find 26 of the Messiers on my list before calling it a night.  I came out with two conclusions from this: I need a telrad badly and my knowledge of the skies is strong despite my GOTO scope.  I was finding objects so fast that I had plenty of time to do some astrophotography between objects.

Allow me to give props to some underrated objects.  Many of us forget the beauty of the open cluster, but M36 and M38 in Auriga never cease to fill me with awe.  I loved the views I got of these objects, and M37, in the crisp night air.  Of course M42 was as amazing as always.  It seemed especially bright tonight.  

  03.26.03 - Observatory Pages posted

Just finished the first article to the planning and construction of my own Ballauer Observatory.  It's kind of a labor of love and is perhaps unlike anything else previously available on the Internet.  If you are planning on building an observatory, I know you'll appreciate the effort. The second article detailing the actual construction phase will be posted shortly.  Enjoy!!!

  03.25.03 - I must be brain dead!

Double checked my calendar today and realized that the Messier Marathon was actually scheduled for this Saturday, March 29.  Duh!  I mistakingly mistook another club observing party on the 22nd as the prime Marathon date.  I should have realized that a 3/4 moon doesn't offer the best conditions to nab all the objects.  Just shoot me and put me out of my misery!

My real URL, www.allaboutastro.com, seems to only be working intermittently.  Not sure the cause unless of course my new name server is as brain dead as me!  So, if you can't get through, just go directly by using the .nstemp URL...at least for now.

Got my pre-registration done for the 2003 Texas Star Party (April 27 through May 4) today.  Wasn't sure if I was going to be able to go this year so I procrastinated getting in my pre-registration.  Anybody else planning on attending?  If so, send me an email.  I'll be setting up a tent on the North field.

Check-out the Astro Links page.  I managed to fill it up with some pretty cool links.  I've still got others to add as I think of them.  My browser favorites got erased a few months back (don't ask) so I've forgotten some of the good links. Remember, anybody from Astronomy.com forums with a home page needs to let me know so I can link to it!

I also managed to fill-in the remaining object descriptions on the gallery pages.  Stay tuned here; still got more photos to add.

  03.24.03 - Drop the .nstemp!

www.allaboutastro.com works!  Name transfer is through so you can drop the .nstemp from the URL.

Downloads are working now.  Will add more files as I can post them.

Currently working on posting a special page for building an amateur observatory using the Ballauer Observatory as an example.  Give me a few days to complete the articles...I think it'll be a big help for those looking to build a roll-off roof observatory.

  03.23.03 - So much for the Marathon!

Got clouded out last night, so plans for this year's Messier marathon got cancelled.  Somebody near me must have bought a big dob this week and I got caught in the "friendly fire" of cloudy days per aperture rules.

Changed the homepage a bit by editing the banner and going pure black on this table.  You can expect many more cosmetic changes in the near future as well as the addition of more content.  

Downloads page isn't functional yet.  Still working on it!  

  03.21.03 - Links Needed!

If you're a regular at the Astronomy.com Forums, let me know if you've got a home page you'd like me to provide a link to.  I've got a special section just for you in Astro Links.  

I'm already getting some good feedback on the Astronomy.com site...so thank you!

Item descriptions for the photos are being filled in gradually.  Exposure times have been added.  

Anybody else shooting for the MESSIER MARATHON tonight or tomorrow night?  It might be a bit too cloudy here in the DFW area but I intend to give it a try.  Would you hold it against me if I used my GOTO? Hehe...just kidding!

  03.19.03 - More stuff on-line.

Added much more content today, including a Solar System Gallery and many more articles and FAQ lists.  

Coming soon!  More articles, a download page for various tools, a guestbook, and a page devoted to my observatory, including building instructions for a roll-off roof.

Domain name transfer still hasn't gone through so the "nstemp" continues to be part of the URL. Change should be made soon. 

  03.17.03 - Home page published to site!

As you'll notice, much work needs to be done on these pages.  Additions will be made as time allows.  If you have something you'd like to see added, please contact me and I'll see what I can do.  Eventually, I'd truly like this site to be ALL about astro.

Special kudos to the guys and gals at the Fort Worth Astronomical Society and the fine folks at the Astronomy.com forums.  Much of what I've learned here comes from participation in these groups.