Ad Astra Observatory

I had decided that I would leave Trixie on the mount, and focus on visual astronomy for awhile. I think that the Jr. Astronomer would appreciate learning to use the big scope, and I was looking forward to the eye-popping visuals from all that glass.

It only took one night of fighting balance and finder alignment for me to get fed up, though. I’ll put T back on the mount if someone comes over, but visual astronomy is not really my bag. I want photos!

So, summer nebula season is getting away from me, but I decided to see what I can catch, and Pumpkin is always a breath of fresh air, so I spent an afternoon reconfiguring.

In order to make it easier to get T back on the mount later, I moved a small table to the Observing Deck and am storing T on it. Still takes up a lot of room, and this is not yet a good permanent solution, but at least I don’t have to lug T up and down the ladder for now.

It took awhile to find all the parts to get Pumpkin mounted up, and I definitely still have some twist in the scope, but she’s such a lightweight thing that it’s almost not worth mentioning.

I was able to run off some 20min exposures of NGC7000, an old favorite, but I didn’t realize until morning that I’d forgotten to put on the IDAS-LPS light pollution filter, so the white balance is all messed up in the images. I’ll see if there’s anything to salvage, but it will take another clear night for me to try again.