Off-season improvements
Last weekend I visited the observatory after a four month hiatus with Erik. We added some thick styrofoam to shield the telescopes from...
Ville Miettinen
- Apr 10
Season end 2021
Season 2021-2022 has ended, once again the lack of astronomical darkness has come and deep sky imaging cant be done until autumn. This...
Ville Miettinen
- Apr 6
Visiting UAA star party
The Covid-19 pandemic has limited all public events worldwide. In Finland it seems to settle finally atleast to some degree and Ursa...
Ville Miettinen
- Mar 31
Three year anniversary of the observatory!
On this day three years ago, a green light was given to the building process of the Castle of clouds -observatory. To celebrate I...
Ville Miettinen
- Mar 30
Skywatch 26th of March
Yet another beautiful late-spring season night! A small display of auroras danced in the north and also a Stable Auroral Red-arc (SAR)...
Ville Miettinen
- Mar 27
My second AAPOD!
Todays AAPOD might be familiar to my readers. My photo of the Seahorse Nebula was selected as Amateur Astronomy Picture of the Day today...
Ville Miettinen
- Mar 25
The Medusa Nebula
In the constellation of Gemini at a distance of 1500 light-years away lies an old planetary nebula called Abell 21, also known as the...
Ville Miettinen
- Mar 24
Revisiting the Wizard
In late 2021 I shot the Wizard Nebula as one of my side-projects (seen here), but the data wasn't that great due to poor quality data....
Ville Miettinen
- Mar 22
Extremely bright fireball!
*Edit 24.3.2022 - it was confirmed that this fireball most likely dropped a meteorite. The landing site is unfortunately in the lake...
Ville Miettinen
- Mar 14
Skywatch 13th of March
A moderately strong geomagnetic storm sparked beautiful display of auroras at the observatory. Some lunar halos are visible too - what a...
Ville Miettinen
- Mar 7
Gems of Ursa Major
This pair of galaxies lies in the constellation of Ursa Major, on the right is a grand design spiral galaxy Messier 81. This galaxy is...
Ville Miettinen
- Jan 26
Skywatch 25th of January
On this night there was a small but bright aurora display on the northern horizon. Also a rare form of aurora, called Stable Auroral Red...
Ville Miettinen
- Jan 16
Pressure wave of Tonga volcano
My observatory weather station captured something really intresting, a sudden spike in atmospheric pressure of 2 hPa. After a bit of...
Ville Miettinen
- Dec 11, 2021
Skywatch 1st of December
This night offered alot of different phenomena - from insanely bright fireball in the begining of the night to small display of auroras...
Ville Miettinen
- Nov 23, 2021
A multi-purpose travel rig
Because everything runs very smoothly at my observatory I've had time to start building a portable setup that I can take easily with me...
Ville Miettinen
- Nov 11, 2021
Lion's roar
Sh2-132, also nicknamed as the Lion nebula is 10,000 to 12,000 light-years away from Earth in the Perseus arm of our Galaxy. The...
Ville Miettinen
- Oct 10, 2021
Hidden jewel of Cygnus
In 1867 a french astronomer and assistant of Paris Observatory, Charles Wolf and the founder and director of the Bordeaux Observatory,...
Ville Miettinen
- Sep 21, 2021
Automated observatory health check
When I visit my observatory I often check all sorts of bits and pieces to see if they are working - for example heaters that keep the...
Ville Miettinen
- Sep 12, 2021
Seahorse nebula
This elongated dark nebula is called Barnard 150. It's sometimes referred as the Seahorse nebula for obvious reasons. An American...
Ville Miettinen
- Aug 16, 2021
Automate my weekend, please!
This weekend I brought my scope back to the observatory for installation. We had big plans so I was really excited about it! I started...