TAG Galaxy
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M51, The Whirlpool Galaxy in Ursa Major
I went back to the unguided well one more time, this time positioned post-meridian-flip. I was losing a lot of images (because I failed to rebalance the scope after the flip), and […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M63, The Sunflower Galaxy in Ursa Major
I tried out some 3-minute unguided images on M63. Worked OK. Lost a few images, and the clouds rolled in just about the time I needed to do a meridian flip… More […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M101, The Pinwheel Galaxy in Ursa Major
Two shots of M101, my first attempt at this dim face-on spiral galaxy. 19 three-minute subframes here. 9 5-minute subframes on this one.
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M63, The Sunflower Galaxy in Ursa Major
First attempt at M63. Could use more work.
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M51, The Whirlpool Galaxy in Ursa Major
This is my first halfway decent shot of M51. It’s a *lot* smaller than most of my targets. This is a stack of 10 five minute images, and it looks like I […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M106, Spiral Galaxy in Ursa Major
My first attempt at M106 came out not-too-bad. Could use better focus. And more exposure time. And finer image scale. …but not bad. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M82, Spiral Galaxy in Ursa Major
Since my shots of M82 are coming out a lot better than my shots of M81 at the moment, I decided that M82 deserved its own space. This is a crop out […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M81 and M82, Spiral Galaxies in Ursa Major
This is my first attempt at this pair with Veronica. The image was shot under a 16-day moon. I’m impressed by both the amount of detail I was able to pick up, […]
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
M81 and M82, Spiral Galaxies in Ursa Major
Another try at this pair. Starting to get some detail on the spiral arms on M81. More magnification wouldn’t hurt; I have plenty of FOV to spare (this was cropped by about […]
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.