Ad Astra Observatory

I spent some time in the observatory, tidying up after a pretty nice set of imaging runs this winter. I had mounted up Cassie a while ago, but wanted to see if I could get the “twist” out of her balance. This is always a super pain in the rear, but Cassie is easier to balance than Newtonian telescopes (because all the gear is “in a line”), so it only took 2 or 3 hours to get it right, instead of taking 3 or 4 hours and giving up in disgust. 🙂

The balance is still not perfect. There are a set of angles where the scope is stable, but I could never get it to be stable across the entire range of Dec. Also, for some reason, when I got the scope all balanced and wires all tailed nicely, I found that I’d thrown off the balance in RA — whaaa? Anyway, I tweaked the counterweights back into place, and now the scope moves pretty nicely in most directions. I like the lack of protrusions in the observatory — no tripod legs or little trays to run into.

I also had a friend (thanks, W_!) help me move Trixie from the observing deck back to the command center. I attached a 2×6 to the studs in the West wall, to get Trixie up off the ground and out of the way. Hopefully, I’ll be able to spend some time working on her this way, rather than just tripping over her every time I’m doing astronomy.

I’d like to get Veronica up on the wall, too — again, a project scope isn’t going to get any attention if she’s difficult to get to.

It’s been cloudy for days (although we had a couple of nights with 2 hours of clear sky right around sunset), and it’s been snowing so much this year that it’s starting to get boring. Woke up to snow flurries this morning (stuck to the cars and the grass, but not the driveway), yawn.

The observatory is not 100% tidy, but it feels good to get some things done while the weather’s bad. I’m ready for some clear sky!