I know it is not like I post often or anyone really reads this blog, but I am off to India for work and don’t think I’ll get a chance to post much.
I have M1, NGC 2903, and NGC 2403 to post, but I need to create final versions, worthy of exposure to the public. I hope to post them soon after I return and recover. And I’ve got to get back out to Aguanga.
Over the weekend I took several hours of data of NGC 2903 (The Perils of Changing Your Method ). I have taken several passed at processing the image.
I started by creating baseline combined, aligned, and stretched L/R/G/B images using MaximDL for reduction, CCDStack for combination, and PixInsight for stretching. These images have served as my baseline for all processing attempts. In that first processing session, I did a quick and dirty (so I thought) combined color image. I did minimal noise reduction, and sharpened only with a hi-pass filter in Photoshop. I figured I’d get a chance to see how it looked in color. It was an OK image.
My frustration has come from my subsequent attempts at finishing the image. In my second version, I did extensive work in PixInsight to sharpen the details of the galaxy. But the finished image didn’t look as nice on the printed page as my quick and dirty version. The outer arms were too dark, and i lost nebulosity surrounding the galaxy.
Last night I tried to split the difference — keep the outer areas lighter while still enhancing the inner detail. I failed completely. It lacked the sharpness in the center, had good detail in the outer arms, but the mid-area nebulosity was lost.
So the two times I spend more effort on the image, I just make it worse. Aaargh.
A problem with any astronomical set-up is the time it takes to get it right.
So here I am with what appears (to an unaided eye) to be good seeing and Saturn is up, but I don’t want to take apart the CCD set-up to use the Web Cam.
I faced the same thing a year ago when I took the refractor off of the mount and put the SCT back. It was months before I got the whole set-up working again. And the refractor set-up worked well. It was not suited to galaxy pictures, and Winter is the season of galaxies.
I got NGC 2903 on Saturday, Moon somewhat bright, seeing pretty good. The test image is nice. I’ll post it when it’s done.
Last night was clear — I planned and executed an imaging run.
I used CCDNavigator. The user interface caused me a fair amount of hearburn. It tries too hard to make the schedule work, so users who aren’t doing automated observing face edits that aren’t required for their use.
The software influenced my approach. A typical approach, emobodied in the software, is to use a stair step approach for taking your images. You start with the lower resolution color, and work up to the high resolution luminance. I have always evenly balanced my LRGB sub-images. I can’t say that I have a theory for doing so, and last night I accepted the approach indicated in the software. There is good reason to do so. When an object is lower in the sky, it is better to get low resolution data. I have not been binning my color, decided to tonight, so this was the approach.
So you take RGB away from the meridian crossing, and L just around it.
Overall it went well. Results will be posted later. However, a minor anomoly caused a problem. Normally I image with subimages taken L/R/G/B etc. With the RGB planned for early, I “grouped by slot”. and took shots RRRRRR/GGGGGG/BBBBB/LLLLLLL. The problem ocurred because the sky was too bright for the initial red exposures. They were all wasted. If I had done a patter of R/G/B/R/G/B…LLLLLL…R/G/B/R/G/B I would not have had the problem.
Live and learn.
I should have written about this two weeks ago.
When we finally got out to Aguanga after the last pipe failure, everything seemed fine. The new outside pipe was nicely insulated, the pump came on with no problem, everything OK. NOT. My wife came out of the house yelling to turn off the water because water was coming down through the ceiling in the bathroom. Water was quickly turned off, but the ceiling in the bathroom fell in moments later anyway.
Inspection in the attic revealed an inch-long burst in a 3/4 inch pipe that feeds a hose bib outside the house. Thankfully it must have burst after the outside pipe broke, and so did only leaked for the brief period we had the water on.
I headed to Anza to buy pipe clamps, and called the plumber. On the return from Anza (having purchased all three sizes of pipe clamps available) I noticed a truck ahead of me stopped at the side of the road within our community. I thought that it looked like plumber, and as I had not had a return call yet, I pulled up next to the truck to see if he could help. It was our plumber, who was dialing my number at that very moment.
Within the half hour the pipe was clamped, we had moved most of the damp insulation out, and were enjoying a cold beer. There is plywood over the whole in the bathroom ceiling, the heat is set at 50° so things won’t freeze, and we await final repairs. I sure hope this is the end of frozen pipes for a while.
Over the last several weeks I’ve been pursuing image noise reduction software. This search led me to PixInsight, which is a remarkable product.
I wrote a page with examples about it. Read about it there. That’s where this week’s (or 10-days’) post is.
So this blog has become a chronicle of Lake Riverside events.
This past week has been very cold in California. I was worried about the pipes in Aguanga, but we needed the long weekend at home. Then, on Monday morning (Martin Luther King day), I heard a story on the radio about how the DWP was busy helping people who had burst pipes. That’s burst pipes from the cold. In Los Angeles.
So that made me worried about the house in Aguanga. My wife and I spoke about it and agreed that I would sacrifice my afternoon and drive out to check out the house.
As I drove up the to gate, I knew we had a problem. I could see the glint of water between the house and the workshop. The main line into the house had broken. It is a 2″ PVC pipe. Not my choice, I’d prefer copper. But another do-it-yourself work on the house had left this pipe there and it was broken. I turned off the valve by the line. The water to the workshop had no problem.
It was 44° outside and 46° inside. No worries about inside pipes, but I checked. I ran the heat to warm things up. But there was only one problem, the main line. The pump is off. The main line is off – at the pump. We await the plumber.
We were up at our place in Lake Riverside (Aguanga) last weekend. My wife’s sister had a nice Epiphany get together in Murietta. And the 35 miles from Aguanga to Murietta is a lot better than the 85 miles from LA to Murietta. We also had the pleasure of having my in-laws with us.
We were preparing to leave on Sunday. It had been a very windy day, and as I was talking with my father-in-law I noted that there were clouds of dust passing overhead. I looked to the south and noticed another cloud. It took me a moment, but I realized that it was not dust, but smoke. We ran to the edge of the hill to the south and saw a fire that was probably only five minutes old.
The wind was blowing from the east. The fire had started at the edge of the Lakeshore Boulevard and was quickly moving west, about one half mile south of the house. The fire department drove up shortly after we looked down. The fire was racing with the wind, spreading rapidly and seemingly consuming everything in its path. My father-in-law noted that a dark cloud remained at what seemed to be the staring point of the fire. We then saw a flash and heard the bang of an explosion as a car burst into flames at the start of the fire.
The rest of the family joined us watching the fire. It seemed to calm down to white smoke for a few moments, then flash into a burst of black smoke as if found fresh fuel. We were not in danger. The fire had started down wind of us and was moving away. Scary, but not a danger.
We had watched long enough and got in the car and left the house. On our way out, we saw two California Department of Forestry planes come in. We saw them make several water drops on the fire. As we drove out to I-15 in Temecula, at least 10 fire trucks passed us as the headed to the fire. According to the stories below, 186 firefighters responded, and no homes were damaged. Great work firefighters!
I found two articles on the fire thanks to Google News. The first article was from the The Californian, an edition of the North County Times. We are only about 8 miles from the northern edge of San Diego County.
Brush fire burned 30 acres
By: The Californian –
AGUANGA —- A brush fire burned about 30 acres Sunday afternoon in a rural community near Aguanga, about 18 miles east of Temecula along Highway 371, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The department dispatched 22 engines and 186 firefighters to battle the blaze, which was reported at about 2:50 p.m. in a brushy area near Lakeshore Boulevard and Forest Springs Road in the residential hamlet of Lake Riverside, CDF officials said on the department’s Web site. Authorities believe the fire was started by a vehicle crashing into vegetation.
Firefighters prevented flames from damaging about 60 nearby residences in the sparsely populated area, officials said. The crews were still mopping up Sunday evening with plans to continue patrol operations throughout the night as north and northeasterly winds of up to 25 mph persisted, officials said.
Voluntary evacuations in the Lake Riverside area were lifted and no evacuations had been ordered and no injuries were reported, authorities said.
I like that our house is in a “hamlet.”
The second article was from the Riverside Press Enterprise.
Crews contain fire to 30 acres
12:12 AM PST on Monday, January 8, 2007
The Press-Enterprise
A brush fire blackened about 30 acres Sunday in the Anza area before the flames were surrounded by firefighters, authorities said.
The fire, believed to have been started by a spark from a vehicle that drove on dry vegetation, was reported about 2:50 p.m. near the 40000 block of Lakeshore Boulevard in the Lake Riverside area southwest of Anza, said Patrick Chandler spokesman for Riverside County Fire Department. He said 186 firefighters contained the blaze at 8 p.m. and prevented the flames from spreading to about 60 homes in the sparsely populated area.
He said a voluntary evacuation for the area has been lifted and firefighters plan to do mop up activities and patrol operations through the night. Winds of about 20 mph complicated firefighting efforts but did not hinder the crews from getting the blaze under control, he said.
–Herbert Atienza
hatienza@PE.com
Our lot and the lots to the East and South are well cleared, so I am not to worried about our house. But this was a stark reminder that fire can move fast in dry brush, with high winds, and with low humidity. Too close for comfort.
On Friday, January 5th, a wind storm knocked out our power in Los Angeles at about 3am. When we left for Aguanga at Noon, it was still out. This is the 4th time we have had a major outage at our house in the past year.
I sure am glad we have UPSs on all of the computers. Perhaps I need to set up the wiring so I can plug a generator into the house. Our neighbor has that set-tup. He disconnects himself from the city grid and plugs the generator into a socket at his outdoor power panel. The generator takes the place of the grid, and everything in the house works. It is pretty cool.
We were very impressed with our Bose Wave Radio‘s performance during the outage. Like many clock-radios, it has a 9-volt battery that allows it to keep the time when the power is out. But Bose went one step further — the alarm worked on the battery. So with a power outage it won’t let you oversleep. Great design, if you ask me. In addition, when you modify the settings on one of the two alarms, it turns the alarm on. Good design again.
Update The power did not come on until 5am on Saturday. It went off at 2:49 am Friday. 26 hours of outage. Ouch.
Back on December 17th, a cold storm came through and we had some snow. My daughter was delighted, although disappointed when it did not last until morning.
So we did get snow. You could see it falling.
Mandy liked the snow (not!).
It filled the yard
Covered the riding mower (not really a tractor)
And covered the grill
And when we went north of Anza the next day, we did see real snow and threw it at each other.
