TAG G-11
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 […]
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
Worm OK, polar alignment needs work
With an hour of The Rosette in the can, I decided to switch to 20m subframes instead of 5m. I only got 2 frames before the mount hit its safety limit. I’m […]
Gear / General / Maintenance
Martin Farmer Wormblock installation notes
The new MFWB showed up yesterday, and I knew that I needed some time to work on it, so I did the installation during the day today. Here are some notes about […]
Deep Sky / Gear / General / Long Exposure Photography / Maintenance / Observing Reports
Pumpkin by her lonesome
I mounted up Pumpkin by herself tonight. The mount’s been having a problem with guiding, very rough behavior in RA. I’m going to be tuning the mount up tomorrow, but the sky […]
Gear / General / Maintenance
It's here! It's here!
My new Martin Farmer Worm Block finally showed up tonight. It’s been in-transit from the UK for a week. I’ve had nothing but good reports about this monolithic worm block from the […]
General / Maintenance / Observing Reports
suckerholes
There was a brief moment between the stormfronts tonight, where I got to see a few stars and the really pretty crescent moon. Then the clouds closed back in. It’s been raining […]
ATM / Electronics / Focuser / Gear / General / Maintenance / Observing Reports / Optics / Techniques / Technology
Murphy was an optimist.
Clear Sky Clock said it would be cloudy all night, so of course it stayed 90% clear until about midnight, when it socked in. But I’m getting ahead of myself… I decided […]
The way forward – mount tuning
Given my strange “bell-curve” style tracking errors that I was getting last spring/summer, I am unconvinced that my mount is the source of the problem. I need to find and kill the […]
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 […]
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.