Ad Astra Observatory

Well, the result looks a lot like a first light image — just a couple of short subframes of a well-worn deep-sky object. But these feeble pixels took a bit of work to collect.

Finally, after nearly 5 years of gathering dust, through 3 rebuilds and plenty of headache and heartache, Trixie has gathered some photons that took a little time to get here, and has finally earned the title “Astrograph”.

There’s still some work to be done; the star images are still not perfect, and the lack of a light shroud means that I have limited time before dew strikes and limited directions I can point (my neighbors have some really bright lights). This image was shot with the manual focuser back on board, because the night started with a collimation / star test against my artificial star, in hopes of fixing what appeared to be pinched optics the last time I was out.

Once I finished getting set up, I spent about 30 minutes getting into focus and ready for the imaging run. I tried a 10min image, but it was pretty overexposed, and I ran into a few guiding problems. Once I got the guider sorted out, I ran off 5 subframes, of which 3 turned out. When Orion started setting behind the shop, I tried M81 (bright lights next door), then M65. By the time I got set up on M65, though, the optics had dewed up to the point where the guider couldn’t lock on to a star, and the main scope just got haze. So, I shut down for the night and came in. I really need to figure out dew control or else my astronomy sessions are going to be limited to about 2 hours.

It was much warmer tonight than it has been (meaning, it was probably more like 39 instead of my usual 30); spring must be on the way. There are several days of nice weather this weekend; I hope I can get some more time under the stars!

Welcome to the Deep Sky, Trixie. Long may you roam.