Observatorio de la Ballona — Urban & Rural Amateur Astronomy This is the home page for Observatorio de la Ballona, a small, private observatory in West Los Angeles, dedicated to enjoying astronomy and astrophotography.  The Observatory is named after the original Spanish land grant Rancho La Ballona and nearby Ballona Creek.

The original observatory has been joined by a second observatory, with darker rural skies in southern Riverside County. The new observatory was completed and saw first light in August, 2009. There is a full set of construction pictures available in the photo gallery.

Recently Added Images

M 74 -- Spiral Galaxy in Pisces --

M 74 -- Spiral Galaxy in Pisces added
NGC 7331 -- The Deer Lick Group --

NGC 7331 -- The Deer Lick Group added

Clear Sky Clock Mar Vista Clear Sky Clock

Lake Riverside Estates Sky Clock

Not-so Current News A couple of months ago, I wrote:

We are working with Tom Jungbluth, an architect in Anza, on the design of a new observatory in Lake Riverside. That project is well under way. We have redone the driveway and are about to submit plans to the county. With any luck, construction will start in August.

That didn't work out. We were forced into a plot plan approval that I blogged about. But now the plans really are in plan check, we are talking with several contractors and hope to start construction soon. But I won't put a date on it.

I've updated the look and feel of the wiki, and reapplied the changes I made earlier to the gallery. Enjoy!

I set out to look for noise reduction software and found a great tool. I've written a page that describes what I've found and provides an example. In the process, I've had fun creating animations and roll-overs in Photoshop and ImageReady.

Please share your comments, both positive and negative.

I could be totally wrong here but I believe I saw the flash of impact from SMART-1 on the Moon the other night.

I was observing from the Anza Valley in Southern California at about 3,400' altitude. The flash was well into the dark area of the Moon where it was advertised to be. It was faint and short. It came a little later than expected -- it impacted at 05:42:21 UT, initial estimates were 05:41.

I was observing with an 8" SCT and a 35mm plossl.

I don't think I was imagining things, but I haven't seen any independent statistics that would confirm that I could have seen it.

I have added several photos to the archive, including a series of M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy. This object was one of the first things that I imaged. I posted my first processing and an updated one I did today. I also posted a decent version of some data that I took in April of 2005. This provides a good comparison both changes in processing and better data acquisition.

The older version of M51 clearly suffers from too little exposure time. The image is noisy. I was suffering at the time from bad circular gradients from poor positioning of my focal reducer. The 2005 data is pretty good in luminance (65 minutes) but short in RGB (30 minutes each). The RGB also suffers from being taken binned 2x2, a practice I do not recommend in light polluted locations such as I have here.

I have done some analysis and reprocessing of the Saturn image I took on April 8. You can see what a little advice and then some Photoshop work can do for an image.

Please check out the Wiki. I am adding content and would love to have someone else looking for a spot to put interesting stuff.

Clear skies!

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Page updated: 14-Jan-2012 2:13:59 pm CST

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