11/2004: Meade Instruments Corporation has posted a patch at their official web site for a problem installing their 1-shot color CCD camera - the Deep Sky Imager (DSI).

12/12/2004: I've just learned that although I have been an avid comet observer since the age of 17 (now 64), my name was NOT SELECTED to be on the long list of 1,136,000+ names selected by the Planetary Society, National Space Society, and others to be on the STARDUST comet sample return misson launched by NASA on 2/7/1999 to comet Wild 2 (Q: Do you have to observe comets for more than 50 yrs. to make the list? . . . A: You do not have to observe comets AT ALL to make the list.)

12/22/2004: Meade has issued a 2nd patch for the DSI CCD camera at it's web site.

12/30/2004: Titans' surface is in the news and in my view the light features are ice, and the dark features are liquid! I formed this opinion after seeing the Titan photo in the 1/2005 issue of Discover Magazine. It shows obvious atmospheric features such as a prominent orange haze, bluish arcs and halos beyond the limb, and a cluster of small white clouds - perhaps over one of Titans' poles. The contrast of the white and dark features decreases as one would expect if they were surface features. The small white clouds are near the limb and do not suffer from this contrast degradation.

12/31/2004: My opinions were further strengthened when I saw images yesterday at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multi-media/images. These have about 10x better resolution than the Discover Magazine photo. The "coastline" between the light and dark features suggests it is a division between solid and liquid - not between 2 solid surfaces. Note that the white feature (Xanadu Regio) is always convex towards the dark "sea" - as are many features on Earth. There are small protusions from "land" into the "sea" as there are on Earth. Perhaps the strongest argument for Xanadu Regio being solid is than I see about 6 small circular features which I interpret as CRATERS.

. . . . . . . . . . (NASA and JPL are probably not expressing their opinions about the surface of Titan until after the descent probe entry near Jan. 14, 2005; but I'm doing so now !) . . . . . . . . . .

1/1/2005: Good news for a change - today I got my 2 fastest computers (how fast you ask? - one is 13 times faster than a 1980's vintage supercomputer - the Cray X-MP, and the other is 11 times faster !) working with my new Meade color 1-shot Deep Sky Imager (DSI) CCD camera. I posted a lengthy message on the Yahoo group site DeepSkyImager@ yahoogroups.com on how I got both working. Now I can image comets in color instead of black & white !!!

(Always under construction !)