Now available in the Google Play Store, Apollo 8 Launch Emulator. My first published app for Android devices and you can have it free of charge! I created it in honor of the 50th anniversary of humankind’s first flight to another world. Just download the app and run it. Then, manually enter instructions into the legendary Apollo Guidance Computer or watch the computer’s output as though you were riding the Apollo 8 spacecraft atop the mighty Saturn V rocket from launch to the parking orbit that set it on its way to the Moon. For extensive info on the app and/or to download your copy, search fo ..read more

Drone video from the eclipse event that I hosted at the Anderson Jockey Lot.  The couple waving at the drone in the beginning are Julie (my wife) and I.  Click the link below to see the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQtz9kssAjk&feature=youtu.be Drone video from Anderson Jockey Lot during total solar eclipse ..read more

Bob Ross shot this video of the total eclipse on August 21, 2017 at the event I emceed at Anderson Jockey Lot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiKnEHUgmW0 ..read more

I have updated a software utility that I created for amateur rocketeers called AltiSight. As before, it is offered free to the public and it now has some extra functionality. But the biggest change is that (unlike the previous version) it is no longer a "Windows only" app! Now Linux and Mac users can download a version of AltiSight that will run on their computers. I hope to add versions that will run on Android tablets and iPads in the near future. For details, go to my Singularity Scientific website (by clicking the image below). Once you are at the website, click the AltiSight link in ..read more

The Moon, Venus and Mercury will all be within a mere 5 degrees of each other on February 6, 2016 in the southeast.  They will be very low, so you will need to be at a location that has no tall trees or buildings obscuring your view in that direction.  All the other planets that are visible to the unaided eye will also be visible farther to the west.  Julie and I have been enjoying observing all of these planets for about a week now (as of February 2) during our early morning walks ..read more

Article by Jason Rhian here at Spaceflight Insider: http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/editorial/opinion-newspace-needs-nasa-know/ First inaccuracy: "Despite Boozer’s claims, NewSpace needs NASA" Fact: I never said NewSpace doesn't need NASA and have never believed that. Another whopper: "... would be wise to tamp down the “defund NASA” rhetoric" ???? Where did he get the nutty idea that I want to defund NASA?  I have made it plain numerous times over the years that what I and most other anti-SLS advocates really want is for NASA to not be milked by pork-barrel politicians.  Defundi ..read more

Rick Boozer is available to give the following presentations at club meetings and conventions (as well as other public events). Hunting an Exoplanet with Stellar Photometry The science of photometry can be used by both amateur and professional astronomers for some very advanced scientific work.  You can detect the light changes caused by eclipsing binary stars, plot the changes in luminosity of a variable star and even detect an exoplanet orbiting another star.  Rick Boozer’s presentation on stellar photometry will generally demonstrate how he used the Magnitude Measurement Tool ..read more

The Science Museum in Florence, Italy My wife Julie and I went to Italy to celebrate our 30thanniversary.  I have put together a new educational public photo presentation about our fascinating visit to the Museo Galileo in Florence.  I call the talk, “Galileo’s Fingers”.  While at the museum, I saw two telescopes that were actually made by Galileo, as well as a number of other scientific instruments constructed by this great genius.  The museum was filled with interesting archaic scientific instruments from many sources dating back over a span of a thousand years, inclu ..read more

To do the differential photometry, AIP4WIN’s Magnitude Measurement Tool was used.  If tracking error did not cause a star’s position in a frame to shift more than 40 pixels from what it was in the previous frame, this tool is intelligent enough to locate that particular star in the current frame that it is working on.  However, some of the star position shifts from image-to-image in the frames I had to use were in excess of 50 pixels!  This meant that I had to adjust images to where they aligned better with each other for the MMT to function properly.  I went ahead and di ..read more

By R.D. Boozer The following three images depict actual final master frames produced when AIP4WIN processed the supplied raw FITS files. Figure 14: The final master bias frame. Figure 15: The final scaling master dark frame Figure 16: Final master flat-field frame with the V filter. The master bias and scaling master dark frames shown in Figures 14 and 15 do not really reveal any important information to a human viewing them.  They don’t need to.  They exist solely for the software to optimize the image by eliminating electronically generated artefacts that are beyond a huma ..read more