Ad Astra Observatory

What an amazing astrophotography run I had this month. It’s been quite some time since I was feeling so sleep-deprived by the time the 3-day moon showed up.

There were even a few rainy days in the middle of the run.

I remember on one of the first clear nights, thinking to myself “hmm, wonder where the moon is?”, because I’d lost track. I mean, obviously the full moon was after the Equinox (Mar 20) and sometime before Easter (which was a week later, on Mar 27, this year)… that’s “by definition” (Google it).

But when I started with a “blank slate” software rig on the 25th, and posted my first image on the 28th, I had no idea that I would spend a solid week on deep sky objects (by the end, refusing to shoot anything shorter than 20m subframes, and with pretty boring guiding), followed by another pretty solid run getting my planetary mojo back (from first-unboxing of the new camera to first postable image was a week of calendar time, but only represents about 3 imaging sessions)!

From full+3 days to new+3 days is 14 days. That’s when astronomers play. From the posts on the website alone, it’s clear that I spent at least 8 of those nights under the stars (the first night produced no images). Add a couple of nights playing around with Jupiter (which produced good images, but none that I posted), and I was apparently at the scope for all but 4 of the days of this run. Wow. That’s like California-in-the-middle-of-summer type of numbers.

I need sleep.

I feel good enough about the way the rig runs, that I am ready to do a little maintenance while the moon is doing its thing. That’s for tomorrow. Tonight, I rest.

Thank you Cassie, 04026, and imp. Well played.