Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography

NGC281, The PacMan Nebula in Casseiopeia

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This is my first shot of NGC281. I attempted it a couple of years back, but came up essentially empty. Normally, the Casseiopeia Milky Way is not available until autumn, but I […]

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Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography

NGC 6888, The Crescent Nebula in Cygnus, from Coyote Lake, CA

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In retrospect, I probably should have shot RGB from the dark sky site and left Ha for the backyard. In addition, it was very windy, so I probably should have dumped Cassie […]

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Astro knowledge / Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography

M57, The Ring Nebula in Lyra

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The C9.25 finally brings some pixels to this tiny object. Shooting with a DSLR brings a different perspective on “useful astronomy targets” compared with most dedicated astrocams. In the beginning, there was […]

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Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography

NGC6939, Open Cluster in Cygnus

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Again, Cygnus is not really my first thought when it comes to open clusters (at least, not ones that seem to have no nebulosity surrounding them). But this cluster could rival anything […]

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Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography

NGC6946, Spiral Galaxy in Cygnus

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Cygnus is not generally the area of sky you think of when you think “hey, showpiece galaxy”. But here you go. NGC 6946 has been dodging me for years, so I decided […]

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Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography

NGC4565, Edge-on Spiral Galaxy in Coma Berenices

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Normally, I don’t go in much for edge-on galaxies. I just don’t think that I really get enough pixels to work with for the amount of effort that goes in. But NGC4565 […]

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Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography

M100, Spiral Galaxy in Virgo

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Another night hunting galaxies in Virgo. This time I went after M100, which I was pretty certain to be a spiral. I had some initial difficulty getting Elbrus working. It took about […]

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Astro knowledge / Deep Sky / General / Long Exposure Photography / Technology

M87, Elliptical Galaxy in Virgo

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I have avoided the Virgo Galaxies for years. The reasons are many, but chief among them is that a lot of the Virgo galaxies are elliptical, which essentially means that they look […]

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Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography

Ha and Light pollution and Springtime

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When I got home today, I tried to process the stack that MaxIM had created of my M81 shot from last night. That didn’t go well. So I re-stacked the subframes in […]

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Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography

Imperfection

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Another long clear night. Since the webcam was already installed and focused, I started the evening working WCS to refine my polar alignment. Azimuth was essentially perfect. Elevation started around 200 and […]

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Techniques

Polar Alignment Calculations

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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 […]

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Gear / Observatory / Telescope

Special Guest Star takes the mount at Hilltop O

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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 […]

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General / Maintenance / Observatory

Dome shutter is motorized again!

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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 […]

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ATM

Trixie 2017 – tube mods

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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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