Category: Techniques
Camera / Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography / Techniques
So many wheels…
It’s been a few nights of unguided astronomy, as I get my feet under me with new gear. The ASI294 continues to make life easy, as it just plugged in where the […]
ATM / Gear / Maintenance / Techniques / Telescope
Trixie 2017 – First Light
After only nine days of penance to the New Telescope Curse, the astronomy gods handed me a break tonight, clear skies and a 6-day moon. Of course, by the time I was […]
Trixie Rebuild 2017 – We have focal length
I needed one more calculation, before I can put Trixie all back together again. The new upper cage has changed the length of the upper truss poles, so they need to be […]
General / Maintenance / Observing Reports / Techniques
Sometimes, not everything goes right.
One for the blooper reel. This is just a single subframe. On a good night, I take 6-10 of these. On a poor night, I get more like 3. Sometimes, I get […]
Image Processing Workflow
The pretty pictures that show up on this website take a little work to produce. Just getting the camera to take a photo is quite a process, with balance and alignment and […]
Camera / Gear / General / Maintenance / Techniques
Starting to get used to the gear
There are a lot of variables in astronomy in general, and in astrophotography in particular. This must be aligned to that must be set like this… so that the rig will just […]
Long Exposure Photography / Techniques
Star Trails over Ad Astra Observatory
It’s been awhile since I did any star trails photography. It’s pretty simple — camera, tripod, point it at your target, and let it rip. I figured this would make a handsome […]
Astro knowledge / Blog / Gear / General / Maintenance / Observing Reports / Techniques / Telescope
Back to basics.
I used to be good at this. Omg, gaggle of geese flying over. Local dogs wigging out. But, I digress. I got Really good at planetary, but had higher hopes, and this […]
Astro knowledge / General / Techniques
Stumbling towards plate solving
I planned to solve all the images I’d shot so far, so that I have good data about where the telescope has ben drifting about. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize this until halfway […]
Maintenance / Techniques / Technology
Observatory 2.0 – We control the horizontal and the vertical
The observatory just inherited two computers; the 2010 iMac from the house, and my old 2009 Macbook Pro laptop. Both of them had full hard drives, and needed a refresh, so I […]
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.