My apologies to all my regular visitors for the delay in updating my site. My intent is to have at least monthly updates so I am really going to try to stick to that. I have decided to reinstate the blog page and the purpose of this page is to discuss what's new as far as what I'm up to and anything else in the astronomy world that's worth mentioning. A couple of things have contributed to this delay. Those of you who manage, edit and create your own web pages know how time consuming it is not to mention keeping up with the software upgrades and new technologies. I started 10 years or so ago on Adobe Pagemill which then became Adobe GoLive. OK, no problem. I finally got comfortable with it until Adobe announces just a few months ago that it is discontinuing the product entirely!! At the time I had just upgraded to version 9.0 with a free trial, so I was ready to purchase the license key when the unfortunate announcement came! My most cost effective option was to transition to Dreamweaver, which I have just done...or should I say am still doing..so anyway..bear with me if some of the links or features on the site have glitches (if so,..please let me know :-))

The second problem is a much bigger one and one that I have no control over whatsoever. That would be the weather. I am seriously wondering if it is possible to do astronomy in New England any longer without a radio telescope!!!

For several months now, I don't believe there have been more than 10 or so clear image-worthy nights..if that. As a result I don't have much new to show you. I decided to post my luminance image of NGC 3628, since I did not get to finish the color channels. It's a fascinating galaxy nonetheless, so I hope you find it compelling even in black and white. In general I have decided that the most outstanding results here in the Northeast can only result from very long exposure images, minimum 40 hours for galaxies and 20 for nebulae. Now that I have the mount to do this, my only limitation is lack of a really dark sky. Until I can move my rig to New Mexico, I am going to be able to do maybe 3-4 projects a year here- as far as deep sky imaging goes. Now there is always the Sun and planets..maybe a comet here and there..so that is always an option. Currently I am doing some routine maintenance on my equipment and preparing to finish work on NGC 891 which I started last year. Stay tuned then for the first LRGB image since last summer!

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