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Welcome to Cloudbait Observatory, located under the dark skies of the central Colorado Rocky Mountains.
Here
you will find details about the observatory
itself, its history (and my own as an amateur
astronomer), the science I conduct here, and
a collection of images I've made. Details of
the instrumentation I use
and some of the tricks I've developed to make it work well are given.
I am very interested in instrumentation, and much of what I design is freely available to anyone interested. Details about some of these projects are posted on this site.
I also enjoy both history and travel, and seek out places of special astronomical significance. The section on archaeoastronomy details some of the places I've been, and the historical astronomical sites I've explored.
There was a significant fireball over eastern Colorado on Tuesday, January 19. The meteor occurred at 10:25 pm MST, and was reported by several witnesses. It was captured on at least two cameras, allowing its location and characteristics to be accurately determined. A complete report is available here.
The annual Quadrantid meteor shower peaked on the morning of Sunday, January 3. This was not a favorable year for observing this shower, since the Moon was nearly full. The Cloudbait camera captured a total of 33 Quadrantid meteors. A composite image of the shower, and several fireball videos, are available on my report page.
The annual Geminid meteor shower peaked on the morning of Monday, December 14. Over the period of activity, the weather at Cloudbait was clear and there was no interference from the Moon. The Cloudbait camera has captured a total of 419 Geminid meteors. A composite image of the shower, and several fireball videos, are available on my report page.
A huge fireball exploded over Utah on the morning of Wednesday, November 18. This was witnessed north to Idaho, west to California, east to Colorado, and south to Arizona. The actual meteor itself was not caught on any of our allsky cameras, but the detonation flash from below the horizon was caught by the Cloudbait camera (image), the Denver Museum of Nature and Science camera (image 1, image 2), and the Montrose High School camera (image). The meteor appears to have begun over Idaho and descended to the south, probably breaking up near the northern border of Nevada and Utah. A meteor of this magnitude probably distributed meteorites on the ground.
The annual Leonid meteor shower peaked on the morning of Tuesday, November 17. The weather was clear and there was no interference from the new Moon. The Cloudbait camera captured a total of 83 meteors, including 48 Leonids. A composite image of the shower, and several fireball videos, are available on my report page.
There was a bright fireball over western Colorado at 10:59 pm on Thursday, November 5. It was caught on at least two cameras. I have a preliminary report about this event here. It appears the fireball originated near Gunnison, Colorado, and descended to the west, towards Montrose. If you saw this fireball, please report it here.
There was a bright fireball over eastern Colorado at 9:49 pm on Friday, October 23. I've received several reports about this meteor, and it was caught on at least three cameras. You can see the Cloudbait camera image and video here, and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science image and video here. As I get additional camera data processed, I'll post a more complete report about this event, so stay tuned. It appears the fireball originated over Limon, Colorado, and descended to the northwest, towards Denver. If you saw this fireball, please report it here.
The Orionid meteor shower peaked on the morning of October 21. Unfortunately, a snowstorm covered most of Colorado, and no meteor images were captured. However, the Orionid shower is fairly broad, so quite a few meteors were captured in the days before the peak. See my report about this shower, featuring a composite image and several fireball videos.
There was a bright fireball over Colorado at 7:15 pm on Saturday, October 17. I've received reports from all over the state about this meteor, and it was captured on several cameras. You can see the Cloudbait camera image and video here, and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science image and video here. As I get additional camera data processed, I'll post a more complete report about this event, so stay tuned. If you saw this fireball, please report it here.
There was a pretty conjunction of Venus and the crescent Moon on August 17. This early morning event was made even more interesting by a nearby pass of the ISS. Here is a nice image of the event, and another before the ISS passed in front. The Cloudbait allsky camera also caught the conjunction (but not the ISS pass), and the allsky image can be seen here.
This year saw an excellent Perseid meteor shower peak on the evening of Aug 11/12. Despite interference from the Moon, many fireballs were seen and recorded, and a predicted activity peak was confirmed. See my report about this shower, featuring a composite image and several fireball videos.
A beautiful conjunction of the Moon and Venus occurred on the evening of February 27. I captured several photos of the striking pair, including this one through the trees, and this one with them setting behind John Sisko's bronze sculpture Taurus, a man with his arms behind his neck, looking up at the stars. Conjunctions like this can easily be seen in daylight; this image was shot while the Sun was still well above the horizon. This last picture also shows a hint of Venus's crescent shape, similar to the Moon's. Finally, to provide a sense of scale, check this image from the Cloudbait allsky camera, which shows the pair setting in the west, and appearing very tiny compared with the entire sky.
On the morning of March 18, 2007, Pluto passed in front of a dim star, casting the shadow of the planet across North America. Examine the data collected from Cloudbait.
Looking for Colorado meteors? Check the new online
database of events recorded by the allsky camera network since late
2001.
There have been no fireballs reported in the last seven days.
Meteor and fireball activity is high during the second half of the year. See how activity changes over the year.
If you live in Colorado or the surrounding states, and have recently seen a very bright meteor, please report it here. We continue to investigate bright fireballs, and now have an extensive network of allsky cameras in place to supplement witness reports. If you just witnessed a meteor and are curious if it was recorded from central Colorado, try the new real-time meteor log which lists all events captured by the Cloudbait camera as they occur. These events are normally processed into the main database each morning.
Read my discussion about an image by an Australian photographer purporting to show a meteorite impact.
Today's Sun and Moon, 9 Feb 2010
My first priority in designing these pages has been the conveyance of the information they contain. I don't use unnecessary extensions that might limit certain browsers. There is a tiny bit of javascript that serves mainly cosmetic purposes; if you have scripting disabled, you will find that most pages still work fine. As a matter of principle, you will find no Java on this site. The only use of Flash is for viewing some videos. I test all pages with the Windows versions of Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8, Mozilla Firefox 3, Safari 3, Google Chrome 1, and Opera 9. If you are using another browser, and something looks wrong, I'd appreciate hearing about it.
The material here is necessarily graphics intensive, but I've done my best to optimize the images so that download times should be reasonable even with slow network connections.
I'm happy to respond to emails with questions or comments. To avoid your mail being misidentified as spam, please make sure it has a subject line and no HTML content. If you are an AOL customer, I may not be able to respond. AOL regularly blocks vast amounts of legitimate email, including mine. I can't determine why, because the organization foolishly blocks mail to its own postmaster! My best advice is to dump AOL and sign up with a real Internet provider. You won't regret it. If your email server implements SPF filtering, I may not be able to respond. SPF is a protocol designed to control spam, but it also blocks a lot of legitimate email. I would suggest you contact your ISP or mail administrator and have SPF disabled. In spite of its good intentions, it is a badly flawed system.
