Space Forum / Amateur Astronomy / May 2006

What is the difference between prime-focus and eyepiece-projection
photography.
I want to photograph, well, everything I can see through a telescope!
The camera will be a Nikon 35mm FE style body, for now.

I know their website is working but I'm no longer receiving the classifieds
by email and I can't figure out why. I've checked my account settings.
(haven't been in there in more than two years)
I was receiving 10-15 digests per day but I've seen nothing for four days.

I am writing some software to read, process and write FITS files. I was
wondering about the options for FITS image compression, i.e.
<http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/software/fitsio/c/c_user/node40.html>
Does anyone know if other popular programs implement this? I.e. MaximDL,

Hi all,
A mostly cloudy month trying to redeem itself right at the very end.
The last two nights have been very enjoyable with some good
transparency and reasonable seeing.

Space Weather News for May 30, 2006
http://Spaceweather.com
METEOR WATCH: On May 31st, Earth will pass about five million miles from the dusty orbit of crumbling comet
73P/Schwassmann Wachmann 3. The great distance means a meteor shower is unlikely; but 73P is such a strange comet ...

You had been in Washington DC and on one day had gone
and seen some of the sights around town. It was late in the
afternoon when you reached the Vietnam War Wall, with all the
names of those who died or who where missing.

Is a wedge like what I have on my polar mount, where I turn the knob to
match my latitude (used for polar alignment)?

My older son and I believe that we observed Red Spot Jr. tonight - 10" f/6
dob with 6mm Burgess Planetary eyepiece (250x) and no filter.  The seeing
was far from perfect, but patience at the eyepiece was repeatedly/regularly
rewarded.  We have a new mirror in this dob made by a ...

The vehicle with the sliding roof in the RTMC photo at
<http://tinyurl.com/jy75m> is a GMC Envoy. The model year may well have
been 2004. Please see <http://tinyurl.com/gptrl> and
<http://tinyurl.com/k3alx>.

Los Angeles area astronomers:
 If this cloudy weather has got you down, remember that it can also be
your friend.
The marine layer provies a blanket of clouds that blots out the light

I have an LX50 8" and the standard tripod that came with it. My
question is whether or not this tripod can be used for other mounts.
Say if I wanted to buy a 10" Meade SN. Would I have to buy a new mount
or could I use this one for all scopes? Sorry if the answer seems

I'll be visiting a friend in Santa Fe, NM next week, starting Wed or Thu
and I was wondering what if any nice astro related things there were to
do in the area?
I'll just have my binoculars with me, he has no scope .. but it would be

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volunteer writers/editors.
The idea is to gather a group of 1000+ volunteers.
By restricting the edition of this wiki to scientists and amateur