The latest version of Meteor Shower Guide has been submitted to the App Store. Awaiting approval it should be released by the end of the week. So what’s new?

Calendar Events: on each shower detail page is an Alert button that when tapped inserts an all day event into the default Calendar. This event has two alarms set, one and two days ahead of the meteor shower peak day.

Catalog rollover: at the end of the meteor Catalog list is a new item that increments the meteor shower list to the next year. This is handy and also eliminates the need, as far as I’m concerned,  to save a starting calendar year for the app.

IAU Numbers: the meteor shower data set has been updated to include the International Astronomical Union (IAU) meteor numbers. While reviewing all the data I found two showers had incorrect IMO codes, this was corrected.

These new features combined with a few internal bug fixes brings Meteor Shower Guide development for the iPhone to a stable point. The next big phase is the design and creation of an iPad specific version that takes full advantage the screen size. But before that even gets started its almost time for the Okie-Tex Star Party!

Update 09/14: Apple approved version 1.2, its available in the app store now. Everybody should update their copy.

A faint little comet has been cruising through the milky way the past weeks getting just a tad brighter each passing month. Pictured on the right is Comet Garradd taken Sunday night from my backyard, click image to enlarge or click here for big version. This image is cropped from original size taken with my 40D using a 200mm lens. A crisp cold front moved through over the weekend clearing the night sky.

Its about 17 days before the Okie-Tex Star Party, time to tune up my gear.  Everything went pretty well so I’m fired up and ready for dark skies in western Oklahoma.

The wait is over, early this morning Apple approved my app. Now the iPhone has a respectable meteor shower reference. You can read a bit more on the support page.

Don’t have an iPhone? An app is available on the Android platform from Chris Wilcox. This has a ‘feature’ I don’t like but understand the motivation for: ads. Another app is available for Windows 7 mobile but I have no idea how well it works or what data it contains (let me know if you try it out).

Obviously I’m pretty biased but I don’t think any other meteor shower app has all the features of Meteor Shower Guide.  Now that version 1.0 is released I can start incorporating new features into future releases.

First Flint Hills trip in 2011 and I doubt we could have had a better night that Thursday the 5th of May. The sky was crystal clear, very light wind with moderate temperatures.  For a change I setup north of Tetter’s rock, by a lone Osage Orange tree. Click the little picture on the right to see a larger version (looking south, note rock in distance).

The reason for my trip was the eta Aquariids meteor shower. I had never seen this meteor shower and my calculations (more on that in the future) suggested it would peak the morning of May 6th, shortly after sunrise . With a nearly new moon and clear skies the conditions were as good as they could be.

The eta Aquariids are remnants of Hally’s Comet. The radiants location in the sky and time of year heavily favors southern observers (south like Venezuela!).  Never the less one never knows, you have to go out and watch to see what develops.  There is not much to report, the shower is weak from +38 latitude. I did not see a single eta Aquariid meteor until about 3:00am. Which is expected. All together I noted 10 eta Aquariid meteors before darkness officially ended at 4:30 CDT.

Added several camera models.

First night of 2011 is crystal clear and cold (avg 12F) here at Clearfield Observatory. Not just the first night of the year, its also first light for a new QSI 583ws camera. So its frickin cold as hell while I’m trying new hardware and techniques. A challenge, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

The night went very well, thank you. Focusing with my homemade Bahtinov mask for the first time: amazingly easy. Testing shows the color filters (AstroDon TruBalance ) have a slight difference in focus among them, not unexpected. Finding and framing target without a camera viewfinder: not as bad as I thought. This is good since I don’t have a goto mount and finding/framing can be tedious.

After the initial test images I did one hour of exposures ( 21 x 3m) on Barnard 33, luminance only (click image for 100% zoom of horse head):

Combined in Maxim DL, just darks and lights, no flats. Minimal photoshop work, no noise reduction.  Very pleased with these results!

Situation for Mondays eclipse here: bad. Nowhere close was forecast to be clear so I had to sit and see what mother nature provided. Just like 2008. Unlike that year it cleared enough to enjoy this event, something no living person had seen before, a total lunar eclipse on the day of the winter solstice.

There’s something magical about the moon once its into full eclipse. Its big disk floating among the stars is so unlike anything you’re used to seeing. Awesome.

While the conditions were far from perfect I did managed a few pictures, click any image below for larger version:

From left to right: clouds whizzing by during early test shot, partway into eclipse a lunar halo, by the telescope at full eclipse just as more clouds approach and lastly the moon at full eclipse looking a bit soft from under exposure and passing clouds.

Its been many years since I last witnessed a lunar eclipse. It was exciting to experience this event, a good Christmas present.