Our local star showing it's spots

Our local star is pretty spotty this week. It has been overcast all week in SF so had to grab this shot from Menlo Park, CA this morning after a morning skate session.

Just a little Jellyfishing

 One of the more interesting falcon 9 launches visible from SF in a while. There were light clouds but most of the launch was visible and with the low sun the booster and fairings were very visible which was cool to see. A little bit of "jellyfishing" was visible but would have been better if it had been darker and more clear.

Exhaust trail being well lit by the low sun on slightly darker sky.

Just after booster separation.

Jellyfish starting to grow as booster falls away.

Jellyfish just visible but fairings and booster clearly standing out.

Poor Surf Hall Moth

Went to go look at the surf but it wasn't looking great and found they moth in the hall when I got back.

Sun Day Saturday!

H-alpha filter mosaic

Standard white light filter.

Some nice big sunspots and prominences today, what better way to test out my new solar h-alpha filter!

I picked up a solar h-alpha filter a month ago and it took a number of sessions over the last 4weeks to get the basics all worked out. That and without fail each time I picked up something I realized I was missing it would be overcast for about a week. It is SF so probably not just because of the new astro gear?

Raclette (our take)

We get so many questions about Raclette that I thought I would do a big post here I can use to help explain what it is, how we found it, and how we do it.

Raclette is a cheese that you melt and is usually served over potatoes.

The first Raclette experience I had was in Annecy. An incredibly beautiful town on lake Annecy in the French Alps. Hard to beat this for a first Raclette experience.

This is how it starts. A large wheel of Raclette (in this case French) in place on the melting thing, a bowl of potatoes, some wine, and side plates of things like salad and dried meats to taste.  The melting things this place has sets the mood for sure.

The process:

• Boil small potatoes (we normally use small Yukon Gold)
• Cut up a potato into some slices / chunks on your plate
• Optional -- we also add small chunks of avocado in with the potatoes
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Raclette is under the heater until it gets a nice melty layer about to drip off.
• Put your plate with potato under the cheese
• Use the scraper knife to scrape the hot melty cheese onto the potatoes
• Eat
• Each person takes a turn with their plate so this is a nice slow social meal with an occasional jockeying to be next in line for more cheese!
• Sip on Wine and snack on cornichon pickles while waiting for your turn under the cheese

I was by my self so they gave me a well used chunk of Raclette. Has no effect on how good it is. You can see the angled heating element, the plate holder area and scraping knife. I think the pitcher was full of wine if I recall correctly -:]

Here is a shot of Annecy. How can you beat eating great food in a place like this?

How we do Raclette in here in SF since we can't get to Annecy often enough.

We have a small Raclette heater and Raclette specific knife. We order a wheel of French Raclette and quarter it. Served with potatoes, wine, conrishantes and to add a flair of CA to the whole ting a side of Avocado.

We have had Swiss and French Raclette but prefer the more flavorful (and smelly!) French Raclette.

When by ourselves we tend to eat in front of the TV with a nice Yule Log video playing for atmosphere. Maybe one day we'll have a place with a fire place but for now we do what we can with our minimal SF space.

Here you can see an over view of our janky living room setup. Jank has no affect on the great flavor and fun of Raclette!

Close up of the heater with Raclette in place for melting.

The magic moment.

Just another beauty shot from the other side.

 

NASA DART on Target!

NASA DART on a Falcon 9 on target for Dimorphos as seen from SF. As in it is going to crash into  the asteroid Dimorphos in the first planetary defense test. Pretty fun that an interplanetary rocket launch is visible from 230miles away.

Our Local Star 2021-11-12

There it is, our local star. Finally some sun spots so it's a little more fun to image with my gear. Next time I hope to do a little eyepiece projection so I can get a little closer view of some spots.

Lost Things

So sad. I hope they are all found and get back to a loving home.

Sad Cat Delivery

Sad cat delivered to us. I think he was mostly sad because there was no more fish tacos in the bag.

Party Cat!

Well, maybe less party and more sparkly?

It's a dog head.

 Hello dog head.

Happy Planter Muppet!

 

Mail Bucket

 In red.

Shocked Tub!

 Apparently surprised by  a chunk of tub hair? Or is that tub brain?

Kimchi Banchan Shoe

 SF street food!

Conjunction Junction, what's your function?

 What is your Function?

What does it mean?!

Not much other than Jupiter and Saturn happen to almost line up from our point of view here on Earth Dec 21, 2020.

December 21, 2020 approximately 5:30pm PST (below)

December 20, 2020 approximately 5:30pm PST (below)

December 19, 2020 approximately 5:30pm PST (below)

December 19-20, 2020 all from about 5:30pm PST. Jupiter here is from the 20th. (below)

Some imaging details for my record and anyone interested. Taken using eyepiece projection with 500mm focal length + 16mm eyepiece + Canon EOS-M6 mkII (crop factor 1.6), 4k video at 30fps. Processed with RegiStax6 and Photoshop.

My rough and possibly incorrect estimate is that is a magnification of about 50x:

(478mm focal length / 16mm eyepiece) * 1.6 crop factor = 47.8x magnification

Exposures: 20-40 second clips

Jovian moons 1/30s @ 12800iso

Saturn 1/30s @ ~1600iso

Jupiter 1/30s @ ~640iso.

Telescope:

William Optics GT-81

Focal length 478mm

Diameter 81mm

Aperture F/5.9

Eyepice: Celestron 24-16mm Zoom

Camera: Canon EOS M6 mkII

Sunset Moonrise

We had a nice Moonrise here in the Outer Sunset.

Halloween Cat's Halloween Cat Toy

Inky enjoying the rubber cockroach that came with the candies wort sent to the team. Apparently I missed him bringing it to me while I was in VR playing Beat Saber. Thanks Mister Inky.

I joined the club

I'm having sinus issues and its too hot but all is in balance because this came in the mail today. I joined the stereo world club and this is part of the member ship -:]

The Moon and a Pale Red Dot

The Moon and Mars.

I stole "Pale Red Dot" from a friend, Kevin, who replied to me, "Look at that pale red dot. Our future home!".

Also I probably would not have taken the photo if Linda had not looked out the window and pointed out how cool the moon looked and asked what the bright thing next to it was. Thanks Linda!

Shot with my William Optics RedCat 51 which has a 250mm focal length but with my crop sensor camera it's closer to 400mm. I think anything longer and they both wouldn't have fit in frame.