Posts Made By: Bill Mette

I'm going to be taking a short trip to the Munising area in a couple of weeks and was wondering if anyone knows of a decent observing location that's not too far away.

The S&T club directory didn't show anything nearby. I was hoping that maybe someone knows if there are any parks or other facilities that are traditionally astro-friendly.

Thanks,
Bill M.

Seeing James' Sun and Contrail image reminded me that I never posted a couple of my own that I grabbed this past June while in Alaska. Enjoy.

I know a lot of folks here enjoy nice landscapes so I thought I would make mention of a piece of free software I discovered last week. It is a virtual scenery generator called "Terragen." and it's capable of producing some pretty amazing results. If you want a free toy to pass the time when you're stuck inside, this one ranks pretty highly.

http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/

Follow the link to Luc Bianco's gallery if you want to see what's possible when this program is put in talented hands.

Over the Juneau ice field.

Sorry for the off topic post but I thought this forum would be the least off topic of the bunch.

I will be in Florida for the Holidays and am planning on observing the launch of the Deep Impact comet intercept mission on December 30th. I have never seen a launch before so I was wondering if anybody has any personal experience and advice for observing unmanned launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

From what I've found it seems as if Jetty Park would be the optimal location. Especially so for the Delta II launches such as Deep Impact. I have a few blanks in my plans that I'd like to get filled in. Any recommendations for an alternate viewing location? Is there any way to get a NASA audio feed over regular AM/FM radio or via a handheld scanner? How early should I get there? Would two hours before launch be enough time?

Any advice or shared experience would be much appreciated.

Alex,

You may want to take a look at this article from Outdoor Photographer magazine. It's an interesting read on inkjet resolutions.

http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/content/2002/nov/digtlhorizon.html

-Bill M.

Com'on. Who are you guys kidding? I'm willing to bet anyone that drops a Nagler on their foot is thankful their foot was inbetween the eyepiece and the ground. Foot be damned in this case!

Try one of these. It may help. :-)

http://db.manfrotto.com/product/templates/templates.php3?sectionid=11&itemid=1994

-Bill M.

Beautiful shot. Out of curiosity, did you place the grad across the horizon or did you rotate the holder so that just the upper left "empty" sky was darkened? Either way, the highligts in the tree don't appear distinctly different depite the use of the grad. Good job!

Here's the other one.