Ad Astra Observatory

The Astro Jedi needed somewhere to store his light sab—- I mean, bucket, and I was only too happy to accommodate him.

I have decided that I need to come to a decision regarding Trixie. The build is about to turn 11 years old, and doing iterations using Trixie as the main imaging scope is problematic — it means the entire observatory is offline while Trixie is going through even minimal smoke testing; balance and focus adjustments, &c.

And while I really love having built myself a telescope, I love photography more, and I’d like to make strides towards a more streamlined astrophotography workflow.

So, Trixie goes to the workbench, while I try to figure out what’s next for her (stupid pole seats, always ruining everything *eye roll*), and here is my medium focal-length stand-in, ready to lend a hand.

It should come as a surprise to nobody that a huge, multi-day rainstorm has descended over the greater Seattle area. I was shocked, however, that on the very first night the SGS was mounted, a few suckerholes opened up, and I was able to get a look through the scope! 😮

There are always a few fun moments, getting a brand new scope up and running, gathering all the gear and balancing and such.

Once the dome was open, we slewed east to synch on Arcturus, low in the east and the area with the largest suckerhole. Hop over to M3, right nearby, very pretty in the 31mm, but was much more resolved in the 13mm. I pointed up to M82, showed up nice and wispy against the background.

I tried to do a meridian flip, but the holes closed up, and it was time to call it a night.

I don’t have an opinion, yet, other than to say the scope looks pretty amazing, riding on 04026. And with chancy skies and no dark adaptation, the views were pretty great, too. More research is required, for science.

The viewing angles are pretty close to the floor of the observing deck. The pier is short, to accommodate a Newtonian. I have two taller piers, but then we’re talking about will it fit under the dome… again, more research, and maybe some fancy balancing mojo will result in an easy solution.

Welcome aboard, Special Guest Star. The todo list at Hilltop O just changed epics.