TAG Moon
Pretty conjunction tonight
Venus and Mars have been putting on a show for the past month or so, and once a month, the Moon drops by for a visit. I missed it last month, don’t […]
The Wolf Moon, January 11, 2017
All of the full moons of the year are named. I don’t know all of their names, Harvest Moon comes to mind, but like there are 12 or 13 of them, and […]
Achievement Unlocked!
The Junior Astronomer has now earned the title Junior Astrophotographer. First, let me say that this photo took a long time to process, because somehow my lunar processing mojo went out the […]
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 […]
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography / Observatory / Solar System Photography
Hilltop Observatory – First Light
We did it! It’s been a long hard journey, with lessons learned, and ducks carefully put into rows. Four years of design and development all came together tonight. The sky was even clearer tonight […]
Trixie takes a test drive
It was a gorgeous sunny day today in Seattle (very strange for mid February), and the clear skies held up until nearly 11pm. Kismet or dumb luck, I knew that this was […]
Lunar Eclipse 2011
I woke The B up to see the lunar eclipse this morning. It’s the last one before 2014. Moon was looking good high in the west (it was much farther north than […]
Losing track of a satellite
It’s been really cloudy in Washington. That’s normal for spring. Well, really, it’s normal for whatever time of year. It’s a cloudy place. The clouds, coupled with my total lack of astronomy […]
Gear / Solar System Photography / Telescope
Trixie the Astrograph — first light!
I had a few small tweaks to do, and I was ready to roll with Trixie 2011. I focused the camera on the moon; this involved no small amount of gymnastics, as […]
Bay of Rainbows, Feb. 26, 2010
The Sinus Iridium, or Bay of Rainbows, is a pretty feature that I found by checking it out in the finder. I had fun trying to ID all the lunar features that […]
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.