Ad Astra Observatory

Once it was dark, I synched the scope on Jupiter (it was close, as I’d been fake-tracking it all afternoon), and then started working on the dome sync.

I am brand new at this, so it’s going to take a second to get it all figured out. I added in the GEM offset (9″ + half the OTA, I guessed at 5″ for the C9.25 plus mounting plate), and still had to re-sync the dome to get the centering correct.

I slewed over to the east, before the mount bent too far backward, and the dome pointed reasonably well. If there are parameter tweaks, and I’m sure there will be several, it seems like things are working OK for the moment.

I put the T3i back on in place of the AS120; Saturn will be more possible next month, and I’ll go back to that. I wanted to see some DSO.

I stopped at Arcturus to focus (the Bahtinov mask is really nice), then to M13.

First image plate solved with north up, just like we knew what we were doing, and I started in on 20m exposures.

The first few show that M13 is pretty overexposed in the center, but I can throw on an hour of 5m exposures to fill that detail back in.

I can hear the dome adjusting every so often. I suppose I’ll get used to the sound someday. I can also see some motor ramping in my future.

It’s late. I’m going to shut down now. Maybe I’ll post the overexposed 20m image. I will probably wait for another night with some less blown-out details.

Dome works. In a word, w00t.