Category: Mount
Electronics / Maintenance / Mount / Observatory / Technology
NJP Power up
My mount, 04026, and I have had a pretty good run together. I had to swap out the motors and brain a couple of years ago, when the main motor controller board […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography / Mount
Yet Another Test Shot of M42
This was from the final day of shooting before I figured out the configuration for the mount setup (first, connect as LX-200 and set the serial port with arrow keys, not the […]
Gear / Mount / Observatory / Technology
Lessons learned
Well, I had 2 clear nights over the weekend, and came up empty for a new photo — I got lots of data last night, but the object is big and dim, […]
Mount / Observatory / Telescope
Observatory 2.0 – Result!
And, finally, The Time, has indeed, Come Today. Some anthology later. Today, Observatory 2.0 has changed its call sign. Observatory 2.0 is now The ad Astra Observatory at Hilltop, Woodinville, WA, known […]
Focuser / Gear / Maintenance / Mount
Another layer of the onion
I spent some time in the fasteners aisle at McLendon’s Hardware on Saturday morning, looking for longer collimation bolts for Trixie. The mirror cell has nice, easy-to-source hardware (1/4-20 countersunk for the […]
Re-wiring the rig
All of a sudden, my mount is dripping with cables all over the place. In order to set up a full astrophotography rig (at least for mine), I need the following cables: […]
Camera / Gear / General / Maintenance / Mount
Another frustrating night
The sky has cleared up at least a little on 3 successive weekends — it’s like the stars miss me and want me to come visit again. So I’ve been giving my […]
Gear / General / Maintenance / Mount
NJP – oh, so *that’s* the problem
The NJP can GOTO again! Art and I spent some time diagnosing and then fixing the problem, which turned out to be an unplugged Dec encoder cable. Now that the mount is […]
Gear / General / Maintenance / Mount
Test things while it’s light out
In a stroke of strange luck, it was clear out tonight, the very next day after I got the new VM. I took the mount out in stages, first just the mount […]
Prosthetic limb for the mount
The NJP doesn’t like high northern latitudes. Because of the way the altitude axis is adjusted, if you live north of about 40º latitude, you start being unable to adjust the mount […]
RECENT UPDATE
Polar Alignment Calculations
Here’s a page that derives Polar Alignment Calculations. (update 5/2020: the original site is gone, so I found the text on Wayback and am inserting it below. This is by the original […]
Gear / Observatory / Telescope
Special Guest Star takes the mount at Hilltop O
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 […]
General / Maintenance / Observatory
Dome shutter is motorized again!
I finally decided to bite the bullet and fix the shutter motor. Things went sideways last winter, and I’ve been opening the shutter manually (and tying it shut with rope, so we […]
Trixie 2017 – tube mods
I finally got around to cutting the MTA-UTA tubes to length; the only eyepiece that would come to focus with the focuser spacer in place is the Televue 55mm Plossl. If I […]
MOST COMMENTED
Observatory
Observatory 2.0 – Time has come today!
General / Maintenance
First Light, a deeper look
Mount / Observatory / Telescope
Observatory 2.0 – Result!
Observatory
Observatory 2.0 – The Pier goes in
Gear / General / Maintenance
Martin Farmer Wormblock installation notes
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
NGC2244, The Rosette Nebula
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
Another beautiful night.