Last Night's Moon

I've spent 100's of hours behind a telescope or astro-binoculars.   Slewing from coordinate to coordinate and trying different eyepieces.    There is something majestic about actually seeing planets, nebulae, galaxies with your own eye.

I've spend just as many hours trying to capture photo and video so that I can accurately convey the experience to my friends online who haven't been able to hang out for a star session in person.    Strange combinations of eyepieces and adapters, I've connected nearly every camera I've ever had to a telescope in varied ways and the process of collecting a solid-looking image continues to challenge me. 

(This photo, was taken with an iPhone mounted onto an 25mm eyepiece on the telescope)

Whenever I look at our orbital neighbor, at the scars on the moon's surface from impacts over history, I truly stand amazed that more events like what occurred in Russia on Friday do not occur more frequently.   As if the moon is tells a cautionary tale reminder to keep one eye on the sky, you never know what's coming :)

As for DA-2012.  When it was first announced, I used NASA's own tracking app and varied data models did show an impact with Earth.  Over time, that changed.  It's always interesting to watch those models change as new data sets get parsed and added, making the models more accurate.   Fun stuff!