The Very Black Hole

Novosibirsk Astrophysical Center was open today

Ivan Boldyrev — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:10:10 +0000

“Astophysical” means here “related to astronomy and physics”. This an educational center with planetarium, observatory, meteo station, Foucault pendulum etc.

Observatory has 360mm Ritchey–Chrétien by Astrosib and 200mm APOLAR refractor by NPZ.

See video at Russia 1 channel.

Meeting with amateur astronomers is planned tomorrow, and I am invited too, but cannot participate because of health problems

Upd:

New StarchartJS demo

Ivan Boldyrev — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:33:39 +0000

Now you can select your location with Google Maps:
http://www.skyandme.com/dev/starchartjs/.

Selected coordinates are remembered by browser if localStorage is available.

StarchartJs going open source

Ivan Boldyrev — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:16:12 +0000

Happy New Year!

As a New Year gift I’ve released sources of StarchartJs under MIT license.

https://bitbucket.org/monoid/starchartjs/overview

Going to Sibastro-2011

Ivan Boldyrev — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 07:54:05 +0000

Weather forecast is promising.

Bye-bye!

Sibastro 2011

Ivan Boldyrev — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 05:35:36 +0000

The 6th Siberian Astronomical Forum Sibastro will be held on 16-18th of September 2011.

http://www.sibastro.ru

Hooray!

Lunar eclipse of 16th of June 2011

Ivan Boldyrev — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 06:00:54 +0000

Very sleepy after observing eclipse whole night. I tried to make some photos, by my cheap cam gave me very poor images.

I also observed two passes of ISS during the eclipse. It seems it was first time when I do planned ISS observation

As January solar eclipse was at sunset, this eclipse was at “moonset”.

I was observing with binocular and telescope sitting on a sofa on parent’s balcony

New old book

Ivan Boldyrev — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:46:42 +0000

Yesterday I received copy of “Observing Earth Satellites” by Desmond King-Hele (1982). It was advised on SeeSat list, and I found a copy affordable for me.

Yesterday event was successful. Andrey’s 75mm refractor displayed nice images of Sun with spots, and my 130mm reflector displayed the rising Moon. The Moon was low-contrast on daylight sky, but children enjoyed it anyway (though some were unable to spot it, but many managed to see lunar maria).

Happy Cosmonautics Day and Yuri’s Night!

Ivan Boldyrev — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 04:49:19 +0000

Today my fellow Andrey and I will bring out telescopes to show Sun and Moon to schoolchildren at city museum.

ESO’s Hidden Tresures Contest: congratulations to Igor Chekalin, Russia

Ivan Boldyrev — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 05:32:19 +0000

My congratulations to Russian astrophotographer Igor Chekalin, winner of ESO’s Hidden Treasures 2010 competition. You may see his artwork.

Igor visited SibAstro event twice and conducted workshops on astrophotography (unfortunately, I haven’t managed to visit them). But I know him personally anyway, as I bought his optical finder for my dob and we met on SibAstro 2009

Berd river on APOD :)

Ivan Boldyrev — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:18:04 +0000

There is a nice eclipse photo by Aleksandr Yuferev published recently on APOD: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110107.html.

Description states that it was made from the bank of Berd river. Berdsk, the town where I live, is named after Berd river

Unfortunately, I don’t know Aleksandr personally, but I suspect he is rather photographer than astronomer