Electronics

astro steppers

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http://www.atmsite.org/contrib/Rowe/dastep/dastep.html

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Solar System Photography

Moon at 16 days old (compare ED80 to Veronica)

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Moon at 16 days old. This is a comparison of 2 shots of the moon, taken on the same night, with the same exposure length, one through the ED80 refractor and the […]

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Astro knowledge / Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography / Observing Reports / Optics

M42, The Great Orion Nebula

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fullsize image I finally decided to try out Veronica (the 8” f/5 Newtonian) in the observatory, instead of the ED80. The reflector has two distinct advantages over the ED80; first, it’s about […]

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Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography

M81 and M82, Spiral Galaxies in Ursa Major

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This is my first attempt at this pair with Veronica. The image was shot under a 16-day moon. I’m impressed by both the amount of detail I was able to pick up, […]

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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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