Category: General
Astro knowledge / General / Observing Reports
Happy "Leap" Day
July 20, 1969 One small step for man, One Giant Leap for Mankind I understand all the reasons we went. I understand all the reasons we stopped going. I understand all the […]
Deep Sky / General / Long Exposure Photography / Observing Reports
Pushing the limit — Pumpkin in a windstorm
The seeing was pretty bad last night, as in “wind blowing so hard that I thought the leaves rattling were raindrops and ran outside to check”. This wreaked havoc on Veronica’s guiding. […]
Astro knowledge / Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
Pumpkin's Return — A breath of fresh air
After 10 days of fighting Veronica, I’d had enough. Tonight, I swapped the camera back to Pumpkin, rebalanced, and tried my luck at two targets. With Cassiopeia showing above the house, I […]
Astro knowledge / Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
Veronica's Last Stand — the final straw
In a last-ditch effort to make Veronica work with the mount, and since it’s Friday night, I decided to really tweak the scope before starting up, then do a series of “test” […]
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 […]
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography / Observing Reports
The Astrophotography Moon is back — Veronica gets a chance at Ha
Now that the Gemini mount is back in service, I decided to try out higher-magnification photography with the new Ha filter. I had a little maintenance to do first; focusing both cameras […]
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 […]
Long Exposure Photography / Observing Reports
In search of more Cygnus nebulosity — Sh2-115, 116, and 112
It was cloudy on Saturday night, but Sunday night I decided to try out another run at the Cygnus Milky Way. I have a decently large target list of nebulae that are […]
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.