MOST RECENT
Accessory / Focuser / Gear / Maintenance / Observing Reports / Techniques / Technology
FocusMax – relearning the V-curve
Things have changed a lot since the last time that I ran Focusmax. Among other things, I have built up a whole new astro-PC, and I never really understood FM well enough […]
Deep Sky / Gear / General / Long Exposure Photography / Observing Reports
NGC2244, The Rosette Nebula in Monoceros
With the newly-tuned mount, I decided to try Pumpkin on some more unguided imaging. After the “baseline” from the previous night, I now wanted to see what this MFWB could really do. […]
CCD Polar Alignment
Firmly in the “one picture is worth a thousand words” category, this is a quick, easy, and accurate method of performing a polar alignment on a telescope mount. No red crosshairs, no […]
Camera / Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography / Techniques
So many wheels…
It’s been a few nights of unguided astronomy, as I get my feet under me with new gear. The ASI294 continues to make life easy, as it just plugged in where the […]
Camera / Gear / Maintenance
New Gear Night
I had been playing with Raspberry Pi 4 (running INDI/Ekos/KStars) to see if it is a valid replacement for ASCOM. So far, it’s still not quite there, for my motley set of […]
A new camera for Hilltop Observatory
I finally bit the bullet and picked up a “real” astro camera, a ZWO ASI294MC Pro. It’s a cooled one-shot-color camera with similar FOV to the Canon T3i that it’s replacing. I […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography / Telescope
Beauty the 12″ f/4 Newtonian Astrograph — First light
After spending some of my bonus last year on a new telescope, I spent a long (long) time getting the observatory ready to run with the new rig. There’s a story here, […]
Gear / Observatory / Telescope
Special Guest Star takes the mount at Hilltop O
The Astro Jedi needed somewhere to store his light sab—- I mean, bucket, and I was only too happy to accommodate him. I have decided that I need to come to a […]
Electronics / General / Maintenance / Observatory
Recent maintenance updates
I hadn’t posted in awhile, and I just realized that I’ve been fixing some stuff in the observatory that probably warrant mentioning. First, I had a couple problems crop up during Snowpocalypse […]
Trixie 2017 – tube mods
I finally got around to cutting the MTA-UTA tubes to length; the only eyepiece that would come to focus with the focuser spacer in place is the Televue 55mm Plossl. If I […]
General / Maintenance / Observatory
Dome shutter is motorized again!
I finally decided to bite the bullet and fix the shutter motor. Things went sideways last winter, and I’ve been opening the shutter manually (and tying it shut with rope, so we […]
The moon is in Taurus
I’m certain that I’ve posted about the Zodiac and the planets before, but to briefly recap, the Moon passes through all of the constellations of the Zodiac every month. Almost all human […]
ATM / Gear / Maintenance / Techniques / Telescope
Trixie 2017 – First Light
After only nine days of penance to the New Telescope Curse, the astronomy gods handed me a break tonight, clear skies and a 6-day moon. Of course, by the time I was […]
RECENT UPDATE
Polar Alignment Calculations
Here’s a page that derives Polar Alignment Calculations. (update 5/2020: the original site is gone, so I found the text on Wayback and am inserting it below. This is by the original […]
Gear / Observatory / Telescope
Special Guest Star takes the mount at Hilltop O
The Astro Jedi needed somewhere to store his light sab—- I mean, bucket, and I was only too happy to accommodate him. I have decided that I need to come to a […]
General / Maintenance / Observatory
Dome shutter is motorized again!
I finally decided to bite the bullet and fix the shutter motor. Things went sideways last winter, and I’ve been opening the shutter manually (and tying it shut with rope, so we […]
Trixie 2017 – tube mods
I finally got around to cutting the MTA-UTA tubes to length; the only eyepiece that would come to focus with the focuser spacer in place is the Televue 55mm Plossl. If I […]
MOST COMMENTED
Observatory
Observatory 2.0 – Time has come today!
General / Maintenance
First Light, a deeper look
Mount / Observatory / Telescope
Observatory 2.0 – Result!
Observatory
Observatory 2.0 – The Pier goes in
Gear / General / Maintenance
Martin Farmer Wormblock installation notes
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
NGC2244, The Rosette Nebula
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
Another beautiful night.