Carlos Ayala

I love the graphics in Borderlands! - Alex Scoble

We just started playing and it looks amazing. - Carlos Ayala

I did shoot the moon last night. It was HUGE!! - Roberto Bonini

Now is the time to shoot it Anika, the shadows bring out the craters, Get out tonight and get it! - Carlos Ayala

I'm sick! - Anika

No excuses! - Carlos Ayala

Sir! Yes, sir! - Anika

Actually the moon on halloween was quite beautiful, i hope you got snaps of it. - Carlos Ayala

Um, I think I did earlier that night. I know for sure I got it on Nov. 1. - Anika

trick or treat - Trish Haley

Cute x 1000!!!! - Trish R

she must like living in FL then. an endless supply of snakes for all her concoctions. next you'll be posting photos of newts. - pea ♥ fierce as a woozle

@pea here ya go: http://www.flickr.com/photos... - Carlos Ayala

Of course you already have one. You, sir, are too good. - pea ♥ fierce as a woozle

shes pretty though. - Carlos Ayala

No. - Derrick

It's beautiful. What kind of snake is that? The kids are loving it. They wonder if they could have it as a pet. - Anika

I am pretty sure shes a Garter, I dont think they make good pets. This one was a baby and pretty aggressive. - Carlos Ayala

According to some sites on the net they say these make great pets. /shrug - Carlos Ayala

If we had them as pets, they'd be mostly there to observe. We don't actually interact with our pets. - Anika

UGH. HIDE. You now owe me one. I don't make the rules- oh wait. I actually did. No matter. You still owe me one. - pea ♥ fierce as a woozle

Puuurttyyyy.... - ronin from iPhone

French Veggies - Lindsey is Fierce!

Belgian Chocolate (FTW). - Ayşe E.

Aussie Sausages - Johnny Worthington from iPhone

@nakachi it would've been better if she hadn't moved as i took it. ;( also, Achilles is my friend's dog. - Carlos Ayala

LOVE. You know, if you ever need a little break, you should feel free to send Isabella up to Va. I promise to send her back. - pea ♥ fierce as a woozle

Aw, so sweet. - Anika

careful what you wish for pea, we may never see you again! - Carlos Ayala

you keep warning me but I gotta tell you, I've taken on some seriously challenging kids and survived to tell the tales so, bring it on. i ain't scared! ;D - pea ♥ fierce as a woozle

haha! you should be! - Carlos Ayala

pfft. has she ever broken into anyone's home? broken some stranger's sunroof? gone to bed with every knife in the house under her pillows because she's a ninja? shoplifted when she was 3? :D i got this. - pea ♥ fierce as a woozle

give her time. she is only two and is currently only throwing forks and knives at her mother while saying "shit" 'cuz she missed. but when she connects she reaches out to dad for a high five. trust me, there is much evil brewing within this one. the force is definitely strong with her. - Carlos Ayala

lmao @ reaches out to dad for a high five. - nakachi

Great pics. I wonder if Cletus will ever calm down enough for stuff like that. - Matt Hilton

What an adorable pair. I just can't take the cuteness + her awesome shirt. <3 - Carmen

she's so cute! - vijay

:) - edythe

Rawks. - rowlikeagirl, hecho en eu

Great pictures! - Mike Fruchter

x_x - Derrick

Want to like this again. <3 - Carmen

he won a food network competition. and not only did he win, but slapped the effin crap out of his competition with some insane jack-o-lantern with bloody eyeballs and a pumpkin hand attached to a motor that moved. bananas. - tiffany

damn. those are ridiculous. in the good sense of the word. - pea ♥ fierce as a woozle

Very cool stuff. - Kyle Hebert

amazing - Carmen

Damn. - Derrick

These are killer. - Adrian

11:08 its not looking good. Not enough time for new data to be aggregated and analyzed. - Carlos Ayala

The ground is all "Go". The T38 jet and weather recon has been 'No Go' since yesterday. Too much static. - Carlos Ayala

Range weather LTD: Still Red. New launch hold coming in...or possibly scrub. - Carlos Ayala

11:20 - Carlos Ayala

11:30 - Carlos Ayala

Weather just went Green - Carlos Ayala

Go for launch! - Carlos Ayala

Are you going outside Carlos? - Matt Hilton

Yes. i dont have my camera though. :( - Carlos Ayala

T - 4:00 - Carlos Ayala

T - 3:00 - Carlos Ayala

T - 2:00 - Carlos Ayala

APU START - Carlos Ayala

T - 1:00 - Carlos Ayala

GO! - Carlos Ayala

We could only see the trail across the sky. Its so skinny you could barely make it out, if at all with the naked eye. - Carlos Ayala

I meant to ask you earlier, how early did you get out there. - Anika

we (i took my dad) got there at roughly 645am. - Carlos Ayala

Oh, that's not so bad. I was picturing you out on the boat at 3am. - Anika

11:24 now. +1 winds - Carlos Ayala from iPhone

blackhawk circling the pad. - Carlos Ayala from iPhone

What iPhone app you using there??? - Roberto Bonini

whispers of scrubbed through the crowd - Carlos Ayala from iPhone

They're saying it's scrubbed. - Anika

scrubbed - Carlos Ayala from iPhone

Yep, its scrubbed. - Roberto Bonini

god damn cargo vessel caused the delay early on. we were a go - Carlos Ayala from iPhone

roberto - its the mission control app - Carlos Ayala from iPhone

Thanks. Yeah. I hope the navy does somthing about it that ship ;) - Roberto Bonini

11:19 a new time. - Matt Hilton from email

PR just said the same thing on their feed. - Matt Hilton from email

Installed the Mission clock app. Must say its worth the 2.99 I paid for it. - Roberto Bonini

Mission Clock, thats it. Sorry I gave you the wrong name earlier. Yeah man it's awesome. - Carlos Ayala

Well back home now...it was exciting while it lasted. :( Gonna miss it tomorrow. - Carlos Ayala

Very nice, Carlos. - Derrick

Aww Thanks D! - Carlos Ayala

Anyone wanna go half on a German Equatorial Mount??? - Carlos Ayala

*Sigh*... space is HUGE! - Mark Jepsen

Omg, amazing, Carlos!!!! - Carmen

Very nice. I've been trying to just get Jupiter and the moon these past few weeks. - Anika

Sweet! It looks really clear. What did you set the white balance at? I know this is converted black and white and all, just wondering what kind of color info the lens/sensor were able to register for Jupiter. - Adrian

@Anika they should be in your southern sky for most of your night and a wide angle will get them both together in the frame. the only problem is capturing any detail in both at the same time is virtually impossible. - Carlos Ayala

If I didn't live on the other side of the continent (and had half the money) I'd go in halves on a GEM. Keeping the camera on Jupiter at that kind of magnification with a crappy tripod is a bear. - Adrian

Oh, I can see them randomly. That's not the problem. It's actually shooting them where they're not blogs of white. I was going to do what you did and stitch together two photos, but the moon pics I've taken have been unusuable. - Anika

@Adrian WB is almost always on Auto for these shots. If i am doing long exposures of starscapes in polluted skies i may do Tungsten. and I never convert to B&W. The shot of Jupiter is straight on shot @ 0.8 Seconds F8.0 ISO 1600. The Moon was shot @ 1/30 ISO 100. Both @ 560mm on a tripod. - Carlos Ayala

@Anika you have to keep in mind that what you see of the Moon is sunlight. Always shoot it at ISO100, as though you were shooting in daylight. The actual speed will vary between 1/30 - 1/200, as an example. The shutter speed is dependent on position in the sky and type of moon, for the most part. - Carlos Ayala

@Anika to stitch them, all i did was open both of them in photoshop and place them side by side in a new file. Since i wanted an accurate representation of position in the sky i moved the Moon to where it is in relation to Jupiter. This created a gap. The gap was easily fixed by making the background black. So, 3 layers: black background, the Moon and Jupiter and its neighbors. - Carlos Ayala

So I shouldn't be getting color data on Jupiter at this magnification? I'm probably seeing chromatic aberration from the lens. You saw my photos... the colors on Jupiter and it's glow would switch up depending on how I had the white balance set. Strange, I guess I should look this up. - Adrian

the only way to get any color data at this this magnification is if you track it using a GEM while taking many many many exposures at different lengths and later stacking the frames. If i had to guess, what you (and I) are picking up is actually reflected sunlight. - Carlos Ayala

even this picture needed 73 exposures to get an 'accurate' representation: http://tinyurl.com/yhtp9wj - Carlos Ayala

Crazy! The rovers on Mars shoot like that too. They have filters for the various color wavelengths and they piece the color photos together from these. I want a mount... and filters. :D - Adrian

Oh it's not just color wavelengths they go for it's chemical wavelengths. They can identify chemistry on visible objects with the technique. - Adrian

as for the canon's you can either purchase a modified camera for astrophotography, have your current canon permanently modified, add a filter above the sensor yourself or just wing it like i do. these filters cut out the wavelengths that produce the chromatic aberrations you mentioned and high pressure sodium and mercury light pollution. a GEM and a 800mm telescope with t-adapter is on my Christmas list for sure. - Carlos Ayala

Dude, I have an Oly OM-1MD! In the 70's it was *the* astro-photography camera. ;) It was one of the main reasons I got it. It has mirror lock-up for vibration-free images. Since I don't have a long lens for it, I'm thinking I should just get a telescope with a mount, and an adapter for the camera. But for now it's just a dream. - Adrian

haha yeah man i know the camera, i forgot you had that beast. awesome. unfortunately we are really limited as to what we can realistically photograph without a GEM. we are basically limited to the Moon. all deep sky objects require a GEM at the very least and a decent (fast) lens or telescope. look at this way my 560mm shot is effectively 896mm on my crop (if i have the math right) and thats the best i can do with what i have. - Carlos Ayala

Yep, that's why my plan is to go the scope route when I can do it. Here's some info on the OM-1 for astronomy: http://www.scopereviews.com/om... - Adrian

Great writeup thanks Adrian! - Carlos Ayala

Luna and the Jovian system? *swoon* - Michael W. May

Nice, good pics? - Matt Hilton

Yeah man, wanna see it. :D - Adrian

Nice!! - Matt Hilton from iPhone

Corona? - Matt Hilton

yes Matt. it was. hit up Amura then CCCo for dessert. As we left i struck up a conversation with the manager there and he gave us a run down and tour of their Cuban (Embargo) cigars...which included $300 Gurkhas. I've never seen those before. I'll show you them next time we go. I've got my eye on some of the more affordable selection in that same case. - Carlos Ayala