ARCHIVE March2010
General / Maintenance / Techniques
Trixie in collimation
Ah, maintenance. Things you do on sunny days and cloudy nights. I spent some time getting Trixie in collimation today. It came together pretty well with the Catseye. It’s clear that the […]
General / Maintenance / Techniques
Bob’s Knobs
I spent a long time collimating Veronica the other day, with the new autocollimator I bought. That experience convinced me to buy Bob’s Knobs for Veronica and Cassie. I knew I would […]
Trixie’s Last Stand
Trixie is listed on Astromart right now, probably won’t sell; who wants a project scope? I think once the dust settles from the new mount purchase, and I get my photography back […]
Thrashing about
I haven’t posted in awhile, and the reason is because everything is up in the air in my astronomy world right now. I have finally lost patience with the G-11, and have […]
Everything went right last night
FocusMax worked. PemPro worked. Guido worked. I shot M106 (through Pumpkin — tiny, tiny) until the mount hit the safety limit, 150m total or so. Then, since it was still clear (although […]
General / Maintenance / Techniques / Technology
PemPro – Guido shows its power
PemPro needed some calibration before things would work today. Nothing major. I got it a little more dialed in. I finally figured out what it was complaining about — it thought it […]
FocusMax – Pumpkin is about dialed in
I was able to boot up FocusMax tonight and just go directly to “find star” and then “focus” and then “run 10 V-curves”. It had no problem finding a star, getting it […]
Clear nights coming in pairs now
It’s mid-March and I think that spring is finally starting to show some evidence of coming. The past couple of rain cycles, we are getting two days of clear instead of just […]
Decidedly odd weather
5pm, rain. 6pm, cloudy but “threatening” / drizzling. 8pm, serious hailstorm, lasted for an hour or so. 11pm, clear as a bell and (what looked like) steady seeing. 11pm is too late […]
Interesting weather pattern lately
About a week ago, the Pacific NW had a high-pressure system parked over it for several days, which gave them lots of clear (if very cold) weather, and sent a big pile […]
RECENT UPDATE
Polar Alignment Calculations
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 […]
Gear / Observatory / Telescope
Special Guest Star takes the mount at Hilltop O
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 […]
General / Maintenance / Observatory
Dome shutter is motorized again!
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 […]
Trixie 2017 – tube mods
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 […]
MOST COMMENTED
Observatory
Observatory 2.0 – Time has come today!
General / Maintenance
First Light, a deeper look
Mount / Observatory / Telescope
Observatory 2.0 – Result!
Observatory
Observatory 2.0 – The Pier goes in
Gear / General / Maintenance
Martin Farmer Wormblock installation notes
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
NGC2244, The Rosette Nebula
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
Another beautiful night.