Ad Astra Observatory

Let’s call it Observatory 2.1-alpha. 

I found myself, suddenly with no astronomy software. Time to rebuild the rig. 

I wanted to dump Windows, as I am increasingly concerned about the stability of VM driving the rig. 

So I looked around at options for the Mac, no dice. Yet. 

I decided to look around for Windows options, if you want to plug into the big boys, CCD Commander or DC-3 Dreams ACP, you need to use MaxIM DL. Yeah, no. 

I discovered that my little-used i5 box has a nice clean start, a few things downloaded but not installed. I took a snapshot. 

I am trying out Sequence Generator Pro at QB for a bit, to see if it works for me. 

Charts are, as always, Cartes du Ceil, with FS-2 as an ASCOM POTH LX200. COM4. How quaint. 

Auto guiding is PHD, with a rookie camera, a QHY5-IIL, it would be nice to be able to guide the mount via ST-4 cables. It’s brand new, I got it mounted in the finder, and figured out I needed an extension tube. Sigh. More flexure points. Decently centered, though. I put the SSAG back on, ASCOM POTH mount, worked like a champ, boring guiding right up until the clouds rolled in. I may never use another guide software. Period. It just works. 

I have PlateSolve 2.28 by Planewave installed, but it couldn’t grok the catalog data. Plate solving will sadly have to wait. 

Early in the evening, SGPro was not opening the camera shutter. I moved to Astrophoto Tool (APT), which I found very useful, but I couldn’t keep it running properly. I like it as a basic “just shoot some pictures” app. 

Once I got the dome aimed and the scope synced, I went back to SGPro and wasn’t completely a failure. It was taking a series of 5m photos when the clouds rolled in and I shut down. It aborted an exposure and came back… I am just learning the ropes. I will get there.  

I think I want to see a stacked photo before I call this “beta”. That job is still open, but might go to Nebulosity. 

I might want Photoshop on the Mac for my birthday. I thought we had a recent license around somewhere. 

The mount slewed, the guider guided, the DSLR works. Almost time for another snapshot. 

Welcome to the world, imp. Now go do what I wish a Raspberry Pi would do, and drive the rig. Rig 2.0 is dead, Long live Rig 2.1.