Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography

B33, The Horsehead Nebula in Orion

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A decent try at this nebula which has a large range of brightness, from gigantic Zeta Orionis to the wispy details of the back-lit cloud.

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Gear

The original long-exposure photography rig

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This is Rig when it lived in my backyard in Brentwood. The skies were darker there, but Rig is in much cushier accommodations now… Centered around a Celestron CG-5GT mount and SBIG […]

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Techniques

Polar Alignment Calculations

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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 […]

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Gear / Observatory / Telescope

Special Guest Star takes the mount at Hilltop O

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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 […]

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General / Maintenance / Observatory

Dome shutter is motorized again!

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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 […]

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ATM

Trixie 2017 – tube mods

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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 […]

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