Maintenance / Optics

Re: C9.25 first light

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Finder alignment is always a little tricky the first time out. Luckily, I can see M42 in the eyepiece. Or through the camera’s viewfinder, for that matter. I was all pleased with […]

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Observing Reports

Re: No Plans Yet

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I am a little concerned about the recent cloud cover — last night, I saw stars for the first time in 3 weeks. I think it’s supposed to be clear again tonight, […]

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Maintenance

Re: C9.25 first light

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I was a little worried about the weight of the new (and larger-aperture) OTA, but since it was a first light, I was running in minimal load mode; just the OTA, a […]

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Maintenance

Re: ASTROMART – Response to ad #605811

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I got the C9.25 out under the stars last night. Nice optics! I like the tape marks on the dovetail, helped to get it balanced quickly.

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Maintenance

C9.25 first light

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I first lighted thenew C9.25 last night. Optics seem pretty good. Stars seem decently sharp across the field of an eyepiece (I needed to align the finder, so I needed to use […]

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Astro knowledge / Focuser / Optics

Re: visual astronomy

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It’s so cute when I use my a highly-tuned astrograph with an eyepiece of all things. Actually, I’m just lazy. Because I haven’t really figured out the whole motor focuser thing, I […]

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Uncategorized

Re: This is a data redo. This is data from 11/08 to 2/09

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Art Morton wrote: > > On Feb 15, 2009, at 3:29 PM, Jimbo S. Harris wrote: > >> >> On Feb 15, 2009, at 9:24 AM, Art Morton wrote: >> >> Looks […]

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Optics

Re: Last night Raw

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Art Morton wrote: >> It’s continually amazing to me how close our FOVs are. That’s totally random, given that we’re using different size chips and different focal length scopes. Or maybe it’s […]

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Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography / Observing Reports

S&T galleries

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A, I’m continually irritated at the S&T galleries which are festooned with guys with $50K setups; this doesn’t really make it feel like taking astrophotos is something that can be accomplished by […]

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Astro knowledge / Optics

modded DSLR IR response

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The February 2009 issue of S&T, pp. 81, has a side-by-side photographic example and explanation of the UV/IR cut filter in DSLRs. The UV/IR cut filter that comes with the camera is […]

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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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