Chris Howard's Blog, page 14

Just grabbed this shot from the AllSky cam in the backyard....

Just grabbed this shot from the AllSky cam in the backyard. Looks a bit turbulent out there this afternoon. Hoping for some clear sky tonight.

mybeingthere:‘River of Fish’ stair runner by The Rug Company....

mybeingthere:

‘River of Fish’ stair runner by The Rug Company. Designed by Barber & Osgerby.

A heavy box of Kickstarter RPG goodness just showed up: Avatar...

A heavy box of Kickstarter RPG goodness just showed up: Avatar Legends game books, dice, cards, maps and other cool stuff–all Powered by the Apocalypse #PbtA. Looking forward to digging into this and running it at some point. https://magpiegames.com/pages/avatarrpg

I seriously miss my Korg Poly 61 analog synth–played the...

I seriously miss my Korg Poly 61 analog synth–played the hell out of it in the 80s, and I just found a good-condition used one on Reverb for $850. I really miss that synthesizer, so fun to play and experiment with. I miss the synth, but to this day I deeply regret selling my early 80s Rickenbacker 4001 bass, classic black and white. Maybe to make up for some of that, I bought an Arturia Microfreak, which is sort of a cool advanced modern version of the old Korg. It’s a hybrid digital synth with analog filter, a crazy number of “oscillator” sources, two envelopes, LFO, sequencer, and a million more features. This thing is crazy.

Flashback to 1992 in California, with some shots of my...

Flashback to 1992 in California, with some shots of my 160Gal/600L reef aquarium with colonies of zoanthids, palythoans, Corallimorphs, mostly Gulf/Florida invertebrates with a few Pacific corals, a couple clownfish, fairly large Tridacna clam, all lit with Coralife Metal Halides. I also had some cool green and brown algae from Monterey Bay. I was an old-school reef guy, building my own protein skimmers and foraging for interesting stuff in Pacific tide pools.

https://SaltwaterWitch.com

“The Lava Machine is Afraid of Me” - did a little...

“The Lava Machine is Afraid of Me” - did a little painting over the weekend, which became this. Mostly playing with color, contrast. https://SaltwaterWitch.com

Tulip Nebula (Sharpless 101) in Ha + OIII, a very energetic HII...

Tulip Nebula (Sharpless 101) in Ha + OIII, a very energetic HII region about 6000 lightyears away in the constellation Cygnus. I captured the narrowband data for this a couple weeks ago. My astro stuff: https://SaltwaterWitch.com

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Narrowband Boogeyman in Orion - Sure, we’re a few days...

Narrowband Boogeyman in Orion - Sure, we’re a few days late for halloween, but check out the creepiness of the dark molecular cloud LDN1622, the “Boogeyman Nebula” about 500 lightyears away in the constellation Orion, along with a bright lumpy backdrop of nebulosity lit from above by the variable star 56 Orionis. LDN1621 is the dark nebula to the left of the Boogeyman, and the reflection nebula VdB 62 is just to the right. The uneven cloudiness at the top right is a small section of Barnard’s Loop (Sh2-276), which may give you an indication of LDN1622’s location, on the other side of the Loop from M78, about halfway up one side of Orion. Notes: 36 x 8-minute exposures, almost five hours of data in hydrogen-alpha (Antlia 3nm Ha Pro filter), William Optics GT81 Apochromatic refractor 382mm FL at f/4.7, ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro mono camera cooled to -10C.

Another one from last week, the core of the Heart Nebula (IC...

Another one from last week, the core of the Heart Nebula (IC 1805) in Ha+OIII with the star cluster, Melotte 15 surrounding coils and branches of interstellar dust and gas. Gear notes: I captured all the data in my backyard with an Apertura 800mm f/4 Newtonian OTA, ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro mono camera, Antlia 3nm filters, ZWO ASI290M OAG, on the Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro mount with the ZWO ASIAir Plus controller. More of my astro stuff: https://SaltwaterWitch.com