Monthly Archive: January 2012

A  Happy New Year 2012 to all who follow the DaltonSkyGazer astro blog!

DaltonSkyGazer Observatory

The holidays are winding down, thought I would post an update on activites and such at the DaltonSkyGazer observatory.  I have been doing some visual observing along with a little astrophotography with my DSI III C camera.  I am happy to say that the warm control room area has been a blessing and works better than expectations.  The small ceramic heater I am using can be run on the low setting(300 watts) when temps are down to 10F outside and easily keeps the control room at 65F to 70F without any issues.  Warm up time is also quick on the control room when first running the heater for the evening.  I spent some time organizing the control room this past week, I decided to remove some extra clutter which was not needed in the observatory;    a printer, small refridge, and few tool items laying around.

I have not posted many updates recently been waiting for the arrival of a new imaging camera Canon 550D which has been placed on backorder, ordered up 28 November.  I am expecting shipping update this week after the New Years holiday.  Once the new Canon arrives I will be back to writing many articles and back into astrophotography again full bore.  I have also been recovering from blowing out a few discs in my back which happened in late July during Stellafane week.  I think a major cause of the back injury was hefting the 12″ scope up onto the wedge in the observatory while standing on 6ft ladder and having to extend way out to drop the base onto the bolt of the wedge.   The healing process has been bit slow taking me away from extra hrs spent in the observatory.

I am proud to say the blog has celebrated 2 years up as of this past December!   There  have have been over 70,000 page views per year to the site .   I have added a few small changes over the past few weeks to the observatory tab above and many new updates will be coming at faster pace in 2012.

Happy New Year to all!  Hope to finally be back into the AP game here in very near future when the Canon 550D arrives!

Be sure to check out some of the other astro blogs highlighted on my left hand tab.  Mike’s Astronomy Blog, Uncle Rod’s BlogSpot, Astrophotography Tonight, Telescope Man, Griceland Observatory , and Seal Killer’s Astrophotography Site.  All great blogs and great people from within  the astronomy community!

If you are interested in astronomy, I highly recommend joining Astronomy Forums.  The AF is the largest astronomy forum in the world.  If you have any astro related questions whether it be gear, astrophotography, accessories, etc,  be sure to check out  the Astronomy Forums. Joining the Forum is free and you will meet many great people with same interests from all over the world.