Ad Astra Observatory

This has been the wettest winter since I’ve lived in CA. We need the rain. But it’s decidedly odd, seeing rain deep into March and possibly into April.

Despite the “unsettled” weather (that’s what the weather guys call it on the news around here… “unsettled”), there have been plenty of clear nights lately, if I had been looking for them. In short, I haven’t. I have been worried sick about doing something to mess up the mount while it’s on the market, so I haven’t done anything in the observatory in a couple of weeks now.

I’m deciding that the mount is just not going to sell right now. It’s tax time, too. And between taxes and the weather, nobody’s thinking about big outlays right now. There’s a particularly vicious set of tire kickers out lurking this time, too. Essentially, they feel free to take whatever price is offered, firm or not, hack $300 off of it, and offer that.

My current plan is either: sell off my interest in the NJP to someone, or to at least de-list the G-11 and hang onto it for awhile, until the mood improves in the astronomy world. Either way, I think I’m stuck at short subframes or shorter focal lengths until I upgrade the mount. But that’s fine. In a month or two, the summer nebulae will start rising, and Pumpkin is ready for some more cruising through the Ha landscape. Maybe I’ll pick up an OIII filter this spring, and go revisit some of those same gas clouds at another part of the spectrum…

I need to take the advice that I put out there so often. Keep. Looking. Up.