Ad Astra Observatory

Art Morton wrote:
> I will try that or pull that 80mm out of the box again. I do like
> this image size and resolution however.
I like the resolution, too. You almost got the whole thing in one shot.
You could do a 2-frame mosaic and would have a ton of resolution to play
with and crop and stuff.

I have to admit that I have been avoiding M31 and NGC7000 because a
mosaic feels like too much work. But I know that a 4-frame mosaic would
cover M31 for me with Veronica, and I drool at the prospect of a 24
megapixel image.
>> You are clearly throwing down the “I can shoot a big burly object”
>> gauntlet. Way to kick a guy while his scope is down. (:
> I love ya man, and I am here for you, but you have got to get under

> the stars.
yes, I do. I have been forcing myself to get out there. Having a
slightly-broken scope makes life difficult. But I’m working with it. I
need to figure out how to center stars when the eyepiece is 8′+ off the
deck. Still working on that.
> I am out because the rain will star for 40 days, and I have already
> serviced the gear for this year.

I hear you. We’ve started having the occasional cloudy night, so I have
to pick and choose my nights. But I think that I need to get out there
even when the moon is up for awhile, because I need to work out the bugs
in the system.

>> I think the new shrouds are working OK.
> Shroud? Does this not cause the “Sail” effect?

http://bp1.blogger.com/_v6cBb8tRPis/R_m50iOwPnI/AAAAAAAACUc/SY4IKPl1XzI/s1600-h/IMG_0350.jpg

The person in the photo is holding the shroud.

Shrouds on a sailboat are used to stabilize the mast side-to-side (stays
stabilize fore-to-aft).

To stabilize Trixie’s UTA, I added 2 sets of shrouds, each anchored near
the poles on the middle ring and to the upper ring, centered between the
poles. I did the 2 sides of the upper ring that don’t have the focuser

attached to them. By tensioning the shrouds (they “twang” now), the
upper end of the scope is a lot more rigid.

And since the shrouds are made of low-stretch line, they add neither a
lot of weight nor a lot of “sail” area to the assembly.

>> It now complains that the pointing is off again (I shouldn’t have to

>> re-polar-align after changing OTAs — polar alignment is a function
>> of the mount only, right?).
>
> Yes you must. That GEMINI somehow adjusts for the Mirror Flop and some
> other stuff. You need to redo the Model completely.
So that wasn’t a problem. I’d left the thing off so long that it ate my

pointing model and everything else (it reset the geographic location and
everything). However, now even after building a model with every star
that’s above the horizon, it says that my polar alignment is off by like
40′ x 20′ or something similarly yucky. Remember I was down to -1′ x 0′
with Kate onboard.

It could take me several years to get the gear all working right. ):

J