December 1, 2007

  • As Billy Bob Thorton said "It's a big f****** sky"

    As you know John like to watch the stars.  Recently we learned of a comet that would be visible to the naked eye during October and November.  The comet is called Holmes, this is what wikipedia say's:

    17P/Holmes is a periodic comet in our solar system, discovered by the British amateur astronomer Edwin Holmes on November 6, 1892. In only 42 hours in October 2007, the comet brightened from a magnitude of about 17 to about 2.8. This represents a change of brightness by a factor of about half a million and is the largest known outburst by a comet.

    As of 2007 November 9, the coma, the dust ball around the comet, will briefly be the largest object in our solar system, with a diameter greater than that of the Sun (though its mass is, by Solar System standards, minuscule).[1]

     

    Here is a picture John took of the comet on November 17, 2007.

    Holmes-stacked-1

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Here are some images he took the same night of the moon.  The first “moon 1” top, is a mosaic of 7 images the bottom is combined and the image is matched. 

    Moon1

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Number 2 “moon 2” is sharpened and the image is sized. 

    Moon 2

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The 3rd is number 3 copied and a photo filter was added to dim the white with out making the image to black.  This was his first mosaic of an image.  Images were processed using deep sky stacker and PS2.  

     

    Moon3