Category: Maintenance
General / Maintenance / Optics
New equipment is always a struggle
I’m in WA for 2 weeks in what should be a fairly dark sky area. It’s been a bit cloudy, so last night was the first night I was able to even […]
Gear / General / Maintenance
Going with the flow — D70 is back from the shop
How things change, seemingly overnight. When the Nikon D70 died at the end of May, I was devastated to lose my primary imaging camera. Luckily, I had a backup ready to jump […]
ATM / Electronics / General / Maintenance
Taking the show on the road — what I really accomplished
So I picked up a deep cycle battery at Costco. It’s fairly light for its size, which makes me wonder about the plates inside, but 115Ah and pretty cheap, so that’s nice. […]
Electronics / General / Maintenance
Taking the show on the road — batteries, solar panels, and Arduino
After the powertank debacle of the past weekend, I’m beginning to think that maybe I need to maintain a battery setup in the observatory, so that when I go on the road, […]
Astro knowledge / General / Maintenance / Observing Reports
Taking what I could get
I drove back to Newark today to get the pier for the G-11. That ate a lot of time — I was on the road by 10a, got back at 4p or […]
General / Maintenance / Observatory / Observing Reports
A Comedy of Errors
I was invited to spend the weekend in dark sky near Clear Lake, CA. My ex-boss owns some land up there and wanted to see the sky. A rare chance to see […]
Astro knowledge / General / Maintenance / Optics / Technology
G-11 – Guiding Oscillation
I stacked the 16 frames shot last night into a single GIF animation. There is a very strange “retrograde motion” thing going on during the course of an evening. I don’t know […]
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography / Maintenance / Optics
Another night of strange guide errors – IC 5146
OK, this is getting silly. Either I have no idea how to balance a telescope properly (which is not outside of the realm of reason), or balance is not the problem with […]
General / Maintenance / Observing Reports
Astro maintenance — work to be done
While I was putting the dust cover back on the scope this morning, I accidentally bumped Pumpkin out of focus. Since it’s such a pain to focus through the Ha filter, and […]
Maintenance / Observing Reports
The Gizmo — I love it when a plan comes together
I deployed the new Gizmo in anger for the first time last night, pot controlling the exposure length, hooked up to the Gemini ST-4 port, hooked up to the Canon, LCD and […]
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.