Jay Ballauer is a bloggin' now...

My good friend and CCD imaging mentor, Jay Ballauer, is now blogging at his AllAboutAstro.com website. Be sure to browse through his incredible image gallery. These are some of my favs:

After learning from my buddy Jay some processing tips when using curves in PhotoShop, I reprocessed this recently and was able to bring out more data. I plan to invest time over the next several months and pull up old CCD imaging data and reprocess it. I'm excited to see how many of my old images I can really improve.

Superb Comet Lulin video

My buddy Russell went back out to dark skies with his Canon DSLR and Takahashi Sky90 telescope this weekend and captured 33 images at 5 minutes each of Comet Lulin. He compiled them into this move:

24" RC telescope - I was in a complete state of awe

My buddy Wes won an evening on this incredible telescope. The 24" Ritchey-Chrétien telescope is housed in the Meyer Observatory at the Turner Research Station about 2 hours southwest of Dallas, TX, and is operated by the Central Texas Astronomical Society. I, along with several other buddies, had the privilege of accompanying Wes to enjoy an evening of visual observing. Little did I know that it would be more than just the scope and incredible mount that amazed me. I was enlightened by the club's president on the science they are achieving. Their research on white dwarf stars is incredible endeavour. I admire this club of volunteers for their valiant contributions to science.