Category: Gear
Camera / Gear / Solar System Photography
Orion Starshoot Autoguider first light
it’s real cloudy tonight. But, the moon is bright enough that I can still see it, so I decided to come out and get the autoguider focused so I can try to […]
Camera / Gear / Technology
A Brave New World
I picked up a new autoguider on Saturday. If the mount is the basis of the imaging rig, then the autoguider is its closest ally. The autoguider is responsible for making a […]
New gear on the way
Time to upgrade some stuff. I finally lost patience with my Meade reticle eyepiece. It’s the eyepiece I use the most, but it’s designed for people who manually guide; the reticle is […]
Gear / General / Maintenance
Orthogonality – Veronica’s rings
I dropped off Veronica’s tube rings at a local machine shop this afternoon. I am trying to make sure that the scope is perfectly parallel to the mount plate. I doubt it […]
Focuser / Maintenance / Observing Reports
OAG installed
Tonight was cloudy, but the clouds were high and thin, transparent enough to see Orion, The Dogs, Moon, Mars, and that’s about it. So, I spent some time doing maintenance. I swapped […]
Deep Sky / Gear / General / Long Exposure Photography / Observing Reports
NGC2244, The Rosette Nebula in Monoceros
With the newly-tuned mount, I decided to try Pumpkin on some more unguided imaging. After the “baseline” from the previous night, I now wanted to see what this MFWB could really do. […]
Gear / General / Maintenance / Optics
Pumpkin's eyeglasses
I picked up a Field Flattener (which also happens to be a 0.8x focal reducer, which I didn’t necessarily need) for Pumpkin soon after getting the scope. The performance was a little […]
Gear / General / Maintenance
Worm OK, polar alignment needs work
With an hour of The Rosette in the can, I decided to switch to 20m subframes instead of 5m. I only got 2 frames before the mount hit its safety limit. I’m […]
Gear / General / Maintenance
Martin Farmer Wormblock installation notes
The new MFWB showed up yesterday, and I knew that I needed some time to work on it, so I did the installation during the day today. Here are some notes about […]
Deep Sky / Gear / General / Long Exposure Photography / Maintenance / Observing Reports
Pumpkin by her lonesome
I mounted up Pumpkin by herself tonight. The mount’s been having a problem with guiding, very rough behavior in RA. I’m going to be tuning the mount up tomorrow, but the sky […]
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.