Category: General
General / Maintenance / Observing Reports
Raining hard tonight
There must be some more maintenance I can do to the scope while it’s raining. I’ll try to get something done this weekend. Polar alignment and RA speed need to be checked […]
Adjusting for Orthogonality
orthogonality HOWTO
Cloudy
There has been a limited amount of clear sky for the past few days. It has been doing the soul-destroying “clear in the afternoon, clouds at night” thing. I haven’t really missed […]
finding OAG guide stars
http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbarchive/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1691614/page/413/view/collapsed/sb/9/o/all
General / Maintenance / Techniques
Zen Autoguiding
What is the sound of no relays clicking? I tried some unguided tracking tonight and captured the data so I could see what’s up with my mount. I had to find a […]
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 […]
Clouds only at night
The sky has been somewhat tricky lately. I had clear skies a couple of nights ago, but used it to test the guiding (which seems not much improved by the worm block). […]
Cloudy again
It was cloudy all day yesterday and today. It’s OK, I needed the rest.
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 […]
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.