Learn something new everyday! I was just scrolling on Twitter when I saw my astronomy crush Will Gater tweet about using the raw black and white images from the Perseverance Rover on Mars to create colored images. Here's how to do it yourself, and a little about how it works. My color processed image from Mars! Any 24-bit color image is really made up of 3 individual 8-bit images - one for red, one for green, and one for blue (Wikipedia). These are referred to as RGB channel data. But how can a black and white image represent a color? The black and white images show how prominen ..read more

I didn't have high hopes to get a glimpse of the great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter this month. I've gotten my hopes up too many times and gotten burned by Indiana weather in December. Like my husband says, better to be pessimistic and pleasantly surprised if it works out. When I saw the clouds clearing up a bit this evening around sunset, I dusted off my camera and tripod.  The conjunction wasn't visible at first, so I used a great iPhone app one-two punch to find what I was looking for. First I opened Star Walk and found Saturn, then clicked for more information to get the exact al ..read more

Visible to the naked eye this morning. Comet c/2020 F3 NEOWISE at 5:01 a.m. facing NE in Noblesville, Indiana. Shot with DSLR on tripod. Canon T5i, ISO 3200, 75mm, f/4, 4s I set an alarm for 4:30 a.m. but I was up at 4:15 because I was too excited. I made some coffee and doused myself in bug spray, ready to head out to a spot I scouted the evening before with Chris. I used an app called Theodolite to scout my location because it accurately measures through my iPhone the direction and elevation of the crosshairs in my camera viewfinder so I can tell if I have a clear view of the NE s ..read more