Comet Lulin

This is the picture I took of Comet Lulin in the early morning of Satuday, Feb. 21, 2009, from our back yard in Draper, Utah. This view is cropped from a wider field of view photo taken with a Nikon D40X digital SLR camera, using a 55 mm lens, at f 4.0, iso 800, time exposure of 30 seconds. The comet is the bluish smudge, left-center in the photo. (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Last week, Nathan, Scott and Sam and I attended a lecture, sponsored by the Salt Lake Astronomical Society, in which Tyler Allred explained his imaging and editing magic. Tyler is an expert astronomical imager in Tremonton, Utah. (See his dazzling images on his website at http://www.allred-astro.com/gpage8.html . I was so impressed with Tyler's abilities, I sent him this photo of Comet Lulin, and invited him to try his editing magic on it. I wanted to know if Tyler's techniques could be used to enhance even my simple photos. Tyler produced the version below, which is much improved, and described his process of editing as follows:

"I am using Photoshop CS3, but there may be a more recent version out. (Yes, CS4) I just did a quick version with your data. I used Focus Magic (Photoshop plug-in program) to remove the trailed stars. Then I did some curves and levels adjustments in Photoshop. I broke my own rule and forced the background to black because there was quite a bit of blotchy noise there. That is normal when using only 1 frame. The resulting image is not bad. Keep up the good work."

Skiing at Jordan Pines (Donut Falls)

I thought Aaron & Nan would enjoy this one. We had a sledding party for the young single adults this morning at Jordan Pines / Donut Falls (Big Cottonwood Canyon). I took my camera along, and got this shot. If you enlarge the photo, you'll see to the left of the big middle tree (below the shadow) two skiers hiking up the mountain. If you look on the ridge-line to the right of the same tree, you will see a few skiers getting ready to come down through the powder. In most of the open areas, you can see the tracks of skiers who have already made their runs. They all have to hike to the top - this is not a mountain with a ski lift! Aaron, this is you!

Mystery of Missing Measuring Cup Solved!

With the New Year, I decided to get "back on the wagon" for exercising and eating right (after about a two-month "vacation"). So, for about a week, I exercised every day. The eating right part was harder though. I couldn't find the one-cup measuring cup that I use for fixing my oatmeal. How could I eat my oatmeal if I couldn't follow my established routine? Suzanne swore that she had not misplaced it. She also reminded me that I could simply use the half-cup measuring cup, and fill it twice. I considered that, but the departure from routine was all the excuse I needed to procrastinate getting "back on the oatmeal wagon." So, for five weeks I kept telling myself that one of these days I would start eating oatmeal again. Maybe I would even stop at the store and buy a new one-cup measuring cup! Finally, this morning, I decided I would try to break through the mental block and try using the half-cup measuring cup. So, I got the oatmeal out of the pantry, and what did I find? You guessed it! The elusive missing one-cup measuring cup! Busted! Oh man! I am never going to hear the end of this from my sweet Suzanne! She's still laughing! I just write it off to my early stages of . . . . Oh! what's the name of that blasted disease that wipes out your memory? Anyway, you know what I mean. Hey! Stop laughing at me! It's not funny!

Garry's New Telescope

Last summer at the Palmer reunion annual auction, Elisse bought Garry a used telescope. They had to take it to a shop in Dallas to get it fixed up, and it is now up and running! We took it for a spin this weekend, and had a lot of fun. We looked at Saturn, Venus, the Orion Nebula, the Pleaides, the Double Cluster of Perseus, and the Moon. We took this picture of the Moon with a point-and-shoot digital camera by placing the camera lens right up against the telescope eyepiece. Low-tech, but it works. It was fun to see how fast Garry and Elisse got the hang of navigating the sky to find things. We tried to find Comet Lulin, but without success. Hopefully in a couple of weeks it will be bright enough to find.