http://obsballona.net/wordpress Urban amateur astronomy Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:47:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The hearing for the plot plan change was last Monday and it was a non-event from my perspective. Our plot plan change and about 12 others were all approved in one motion in the first five minutes of the meeting. I'm certainly not complaining. We are in ... http://obsballona.net/wordpress/2008/08/17/regulatory-update/ Almost a month after it arrived, the AP-900 has seen first light. That is, perhaps, an overstatement, since I am not sure a mount can see first light. But I had it up and running last night in Lake Riverside, with the NP-101 (itself seeing light for the ... http://obsballona.net/wordpress/2008/08/10/first-light-for-the-ap-900/ With a vacation last month, I missed getting this posted, but here's the news. The forces of zoning and regulation have slowed progress on the new observatory. When our architect went to file the building permit, he was informed that, because our garage is detached, a plot plan change would ... http://obsballona.net/wordpress/2008/08/03/regulated/ I have always considered my site maintenance practices to be quite safe. I try to keep code compliant, I stay on current patches, and so on. But probably quite a while ago, at least over a year, the main page on Obsballona.net was hacked. Someone, somehow, edited the index.php ... http://obsballona.net/wordpress/2008/06/28/hacked/ I've been under the weather the last several days and have been trying to take it easy. So I have taken the opportunity to do a little web searching. I have been looking for a good open source HTML / PHP editor that runs on Windows for a while. ... http://obsballona.net/wordpress/2008/06/17/site-updates/ We went to the final regular season concert for the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Disney Hall today. There were three more modern (1900+) pieces that were nice, if a little more avant garde then our preference, but still enjoyable. One of the pieces was Esa-Pekka Salonen's Piano Concerto. ... http://obsballona.net/wordpress/2008/06/01/high-concepts-with-modern-classical-music/ We have completed the first step of the new observatory project. The driveway at Osage Court has been re-routed and re-graveled, and a parking area has been added near the observatory site. Here is a view looking down the drive to the south. (Click-through requires a login.) We ... http://obsballona.net/wordpress/2008/05/25/step-one-the-drive/ It has finally been achieved. After almost two years, on April 11, 2008, I took a CCD image from Lake Riverside. This took quite a while because I have a full observatory set-up in Los Angeles. So going to a temporary set-up again was a big leap, ... http://obsballona.net/wordpress/2008/04/13/first-ccd-image-from-lake-riverside/ I have been using a new planetary imaging camera for the last several months. I have a DMK DFK21AU04 640x480 USB 2.0 camera. I originally bought a firewire camera but was able to swap it for a USB version, much more convenient since my laptop does not ... http://obsballona.net/wordpress/2008/04/08/dmk-ic-capture-video-settings-follies/ Since we've been going back and forth to the LRE house and I haven't had a chance to get things fully set-up in LA for CCD imaging, my main target has been the Moon. As in the previous post, I have tried additional mosaics. I have also kept ... http://obsballona.net/wordpress/2008/03/15/getting-deep-on-processing-math/