Monday, July 26, 2010

Astronomy Class

Well, the clouds persist here. I went out last Friday night (as did quite a lot of other local astronomers) to our close-in site, due to the fact that the SkyClock looked decent but iffy. Well, the high-level clouds rolled and stayed. I was able to observe some bright star clusters available to me in the TOUR functionality of my CGEM mount, as well as the moon, Mars and Saturn. But, that was about all I could achieve. I am really hoping that the next few weeks will bring clear skies and some more photo opportunities. I'd really like to revisit M8 and M20 with my new gear!

In the meantime, I have enrolled into an astronomy class as an elective subject as part of my Masters program. Entitled "Planetary and Solar System Studies", it looks rather interesting and the text (The Cosmic Perspective, 6th Edition) looks like a great read. This will be my first graduate-level astronomy class so we'll see how it goes. It could be really tricky if there's a lot of mathematics involved but it will be fun to study nonetheless.

So, hopefully next month I'll have some new images and perhaps an elightened view of our solar system...

Hope the skies are clear where you are!

2 comments:

Sidewalk Universe said...

Your gonna be really smart (if your not already) by the time your done with this class. But will you be able to handle wing nut astro guys like myself after all this higher education? Will you stay simple in your approach and fascination with the universe?

Oh time will tell but I expect you will still be the try hard guy.

Phil said...

Judging by my ongoing attempts at astrophotography, I'll definitely always be the try hard guy!

We're getting some good skies here now. I am going out again on Thursday. Last night was GREAT! Hope you're getting some clear skies too.

Cheers!