Ad Astra Observatory

I didn’t have a good month of photography due to the fires, and I’m a little bummed about that.

I’m starting to realize that I have zero fully functional telescopes right now, and I’m about to go traveling, which means that I have work to do when I get back in town. What’s wrong with all my scopes all of a sudden?

– Veronica: I am in the middle of replacing the secondary mirror with a 2.6”, and it’s not collimated properly at the moment. Also, it has no focuser because I want to put the focuser on Trixie. So Veronica would take an hour or so to knock back together.

– Kate: Kate’s Robofocus bracket popped off the back of the scope (it’s held on by double-sided tape *cringe*) because I was trying to get the visual back off and it was interfering, so Kate only has manual focus at the moment. Also, the Telrad and finder are only “kind of” pointing where the main scope points.

– Pumpkin: Pumpkin’s focuser can’t hold up the camera — I think I mis-installed the Robofocus bracket. Pumpkin’s finder points “kind of” where Pumpkin is pointing. I can’t figure out whether Pumpkin’s field is flat. I don’t have Robofocus hooked up.

– Trixie: Trixie is in parts and has not had first light yet. The focuser which could be on Veronica is sitting on my workbench waiting to be installed on Trixie. The blue CR-1 which I’ll probably send to
Moonlite to be retrofit with compression ring and motor, etc. is also lying around waiting to be installed on either Veronica or Trixie.

– General stuff: I need to shoot flats and don’t have a good way to do it. I’ll be out of town 4 out of the next 5 weeks and will have to be able to grab photons as soon as I get back. The summer is slipping away. My stupid roof makes shooting the summer nebulae a pain in the ass. I have all the time in the world right now, with kids and wife out of town, and I feel like I’m wasting it.

I’m frustrated at astronomy right now.

At least my mount’s polar aligned.

I think.