Fred Ley

Yes, with NASA Dryden at Edwards. -Fred

Spiro, So you couldn't join because of bad eyesight. Reminds me of my dad, he wanted to join tha RAF in WWII but they wouldn't take him because he wore glasses. That's fine, during the Battle for Britain, far to many pilots never returned. Vasilis, No doubt, these aircraft cost a bundle alright. Oh, I have posted a sequence of SR71 photos that I took on my personal page here on astrovox for you enjoyment. They were taken with the power winder continually engaged. It was a very short time span. Hope you like them. -Fred

I guess you must have a rather extensive collection of photographs by now. Did you take these when you were in the air Force? The A7's remind me of time whe we sharded a hanger with those aircraft. At that time I had an air filtration machine to keep the environment somewhat on the "clean" side of things. Well, everytime an A7 in hangar would fire up its engine and those fumes would come into the work area, it wqs time to throw out the filter for the air filtration machine. It just couldn't cope with the volume of exhaust put out by an A7. The fastest aircraft that I saw was an SR71 that was at 80,000 feet (24,384 meters) and when it passed my meridian. the shock wave didn't reach me until the aircraft was practically at the horizon. A very impressive aircraft. I will have to e-mail you some of my photographs to view. -Fred

Well, when the LA basin is all fogged in, the Milky Way is just great. Mind you this site is not a pristine dark sky site, but it is good enough for astronomy and ccd astronomy. To the west is Palmdale, Lancaster and the community of Quartz Hill. Their combined population is about 250,000 and it creates some glow to the west. I am stituated 17 miles to the east so that helps by having some distamce between us. Lets see, that's about 27 kilometers. I honestly can't recall the magnitude, but the Pleiades is very easy to view with ones eye. San Diego is to far south to cause any interference to the night sky at my location. I never figured one photo would have me writing all these replies. But, that's ok, it is a lot of fun in doing so. I just need to get a vehicle one day so that I can get out under the stars and do what I like doing-observing. Oh, and don't forget the "space music" and that bbq-oh yeah! -Fred

I saw NGC4656 and keep thinking of NGC4565 which ovious as the 5 and 6 are reversed. So, it looks like half-a-galaxy at first glance. I had to go and see where it is located, and, it is at RA 12 44 (h,m) and Dec +32 10 (d,m) and it is at a visual magnitude of 10.4. An interesting object as it is interacting with NGC4631. Nice image and an interesting object. -Fred

What! I'm gonna miss the eclipse? I want my money back. Oh well, we can't have everything. Driving to the eclipse will be easy. The house is at 2,600-foot elevation (792 meters) and the snow topped mountain just above the SR71 is Mt. San Antonio (Old Baldy Peak) at 10,064 feet (3,067 meters). Saddleback Butte just next to the house is at 3,651-feet (1,112 meters). So much for the intro geology course. -Fred

What an interesting image. Two things readiy come to mind. One, it reminds me of some of the panoramic images the two rovers on Mars have taken and, secondly, scenes from a game for pc's titled Myst-it came out a while back. Looking at the thumbnail I was trying to figure out what it was exactly that you had there. Now I know. Cool stuff. -Fred

OK Foxmoor, Ah-hah! Movies! You had to remind me. Once I had to drive through the Saddleback Butte State Park, which is the hills and property to the left of the houses, because at the end of the dirt road they were shooting a movie. The CHP (California Highway Patrol) cruiser had blocked the road to traffic. The next paved road, a mile to the West, has a built diner and motel for a movie shot some time ago. They didn't tear it down and it has been used in many movies and commercials. I see the area from time to time on tv here in Athens and say to myself "hey, I know that location". If it is a night shoot, the sky above the area is all lit up with their bright lights. Always something interesting happening. The area around my home and Edwards can be explored with Goggle Earth if you don't have anything better to do on a cold, windy and rainy night. -Fred

Hi Spiros, I have Edwards AFB just to my north. I worked there for many years as a civilian contractor. I have a nice collection of aviation photos and a few shuttle landings-did get one on video from a good location. It was the first shuttle mission after the Challenger accident back in 86. I also have many military aircraft fly over the house B1, B2, B52, C17, helicopters and other odds and ends. That gives me a few nice photo opportunities. Sometimes I get four Marine helicopters fly over and the house shakes-these are those big bad boy helicopters. If you have noticed some of my past postings to this site, I also have a good view to the west to observe missle launches from Vandenberg AFB and have posted a few photos of launches. So my location is pretty good for aviation and astronomy enthusiasts. The SR71 takes first place, but my little house is down there. -Fred

Hey! This came out real nice. Try doing that with film and you you'll end up with a white image. -Fred

That is an interesting event there. I was wondering if you know how long the partial transit lasted. Was it just a few seconds? -Fred

Very nicely done there Antonio. So this what the Dumbell actually looks like. From what I can understand from your description, colors have been matched to the colors used by the Hubble telescope. -Fred

Hi Sakis, I am very impressed by this photo. Some months ago I posted an image the Veil complex that I had scanned out of an old issue of Sky & Telescope. The image covered two pages. If you look at the image filed under "Different Astronomical Photographs" you will see that the two images pretty much approximate each other. The S & T image was taken with the large Schmidt on Palomar. It uses glass negatives that are 14" x 14" in size. That brings the glass negative to 355.6 mm x 355.6 mm in the metric world of measuring things. Quite a big negative and wonderful for making contact prints too. I am taken aback by the fact that with a ccd and a much smaller sized instrument, one is able to capture such a plethora of detail. Now you need to image the rest of the Veil complex and get one huge image of it all-if you feel so inclined. Anyhow, again, great shot. Hope to meet you at the meeeting in Alexandroupolis in the Fall. -Fred

I went to scrutinize your photo up close and noticed that you have also caught three objects crossing you fireld of view. One is in the upper left corner and the other two are easily found just below and to the right of Polaris. Are they satellites by any chance? -Fred

Wow! Your image certainly has got my attention. Real nice job. Is that you standing there and looking skywards? -Fred

Yeah! The photograph also remids me of looking through a microscope at "billions" of little guys running around. Well, ok, these bad boys are so far away that we can't notice their velocity like we can through a microscope. As always, "What Next?" -Fred

Nice setup you have there. I have always believed a nice equatorial platform is a great thing to have. As one can readily conclude, it allows for the persuit of a few different options with ease. It is so cumbersome to keep switching instrumentation everytime one wants to do something different-as I have discovered over the years. Have fun! -Fred

Hi Vangelis, Ah, neat! You sure can see the slight dip in the magnitude there. Very nice. -Fred

Ohh...Ahhh...The Moon setting from the Menelaion. Nice, nice, nice. -Fred

Hey Dimitri, If you look above Tethys and to the right a bit, there is a black spot on the outer edge of the ring system. Perhaps it is the shadow of Tethys? What do you think dude? -Fred