Ad Astra Observatory

Now that I’ve taken a little victory lap, it’s time to get the rig tuned up a bit.

I have some photos in the pipeline, more half-processed “proof of concept” shots.

You should go take another look at the GSSP posts I made. I’ll let you find the search bar? I used to be pretty good at this, people.

That was this rig, Pumpkin + NJP &c.. in a cow pasture in the middle of nowhere east of Redding. The whole place is amazing, and you must go sometime, even if it’s just for public night.

I could pick the Rig up, move It to way over there, run it on batteries (including laptop), and rip down some serious photons. Like the distance runner who trains in Denver, and then wipes ’em up back at sea level.

Yeah, I’m not there yet. 🙂

The whole rig has a date with wrenches and screwdrivers. If you’re not into gory technical details and just want photos, well, stick around.

A properly polar-aligned and orthogonal rig will track the sky perfectly.
Trailed photos are a sign of a broken Rig.

Most of these photos are unguided, you can only guide out “regular” drifting; random messes up the closed-loop nature of the autoguiding system. There is a whole Zen of Autoguiding, and I’m not There yet, either. I need to see the random stuff, because I’m trying to figure out whether the Rig is straight yet or not.

So far, not. Alas.

There have been funny subframes; I will pass a few of those along, too.

I used to be able to set the guider on this mount, and it would just.. go. I’d set the camera going, go to bed, and come out in the morning to close the roof and shut down.

Wrenches.

and Screwdrivers.

Oh, yes. 🙂