Category: Gear
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M27, The Dumbbell Nebula in Vulpecula
I’m having trouble getting the G11/SCT combo to work shooting to the East, for some reason. So, I decided to “make lemonade” and shoot to the West instead. This neatly avoids the […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M57, The Ring Nebula in Lyra
First attempt at the Ring Nebula. The Ring Nebula has always been a little out of my reach, photographically. At 1′ in diameter, it’s a really, really small object. The Nikon D70’s […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M13, Globular Cluster in Hercules
M13, Globular Cluster in Hercules First light for the new 8” SCT. Could probably get some more detail, but not bad for a first shot. This shot was unguided, mostly because I […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
IC 5146, The Cocoon Nebula in Cygnus
First shot at the Cocoon. Apparently, there’s a dark nebula in the area, too, and I probably got it, but I’ll have to go look at the full frame again. There’s probably […]
Astro knowledge / Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
NGC 7293, The Helix Nebula in Aquarius
I’ve been having trouble with my setting circles lately. But once I got them dialed in, this object was pretty easy to find and photograph. For some reason, the image appears slightly […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M33, The Triangulum Galaxy
A first shot at the Autumn galaxies. I was having a lot of trouble with astronomy lat night for some reason; My focuser motor is on the blink, I got my T-ring […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
NGC 6888, The Crescent Nebula in Cygnus
Another try at the Crescent. Two hours of integration at f/5. Could still use some work.
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
NGC 7635, The Bubble Nebula in Cepheus
I’ve been looking around for new nebulae to shoot with the f/5 scope. The night’s shooting was going well, so I decided to try out The Bubble Nebula. It’s pretty small (on […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M31, The Great Andromeda Galaxy
Veronica’s FOV is too tight to get all of Andromeda, so this is just a shot of the central region of the galaxy. M32 and M110 were hugging the edges of the […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M27, The Dumbbell Nebula in Vulpecula
I tried a longer integration time on M27 (2 hours’ worth of 3-minute images vs. an hour of 2 min)… I think that I’ve reached the limit of what I can achieve […]
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 […]
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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.