TAG G-11
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” […]
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
Veronica's Last Stand — playing with exposure length
I only have a few more things I can try before I have to give up on Veronica as an imaging scope on The Lemon-i. Tonight, I added a 2.8x “Klee” Barlow […]
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
Fall preview – NGC7635
Cepheus is still a little low in the sky to get a full treatment. But I wanted to see what would happen if I shot an object that was low enough that […]
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
Familiar landscape — NGC 6888 and Sadr
I was running out of ideas of things to shoot; I’m getting pretty worn out from several nights in a row of being up late shooting, and I’m starting to make bad […]
G-11 maintenance – the nuclear option
I have a second G-11 living in my garage. I bought it on Astromart with the intent of selling it for a profit. It’s a non-Gemini G-11. But, since it’s essentially a […]
Long Exposure Photography / Maintenance
My dual-camera rig
I recently discovered that the counterweight shaft on the G-11 has a 3/8”-16 threaded hole, which is a standard photographic thread pitch. This left open the prospect of mounting a camera at […]
G-11 brass worm gear – First Light!
I got about 20 minutes of clean suckerhole tonight. It’s been cloudy for days now, even a bit of rain (very unusual weather for late April/early May in CA). When I checked […]
G-11 maintenance – new brass worm installed
Some nights I just go a little crazy. My new RA worm showed up today. It is seriously bright and shiny. I can only hope this fixes all my PE problems. 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.