I’m in the process of changing houses.

Among all the other concerns, this means that Ad Astra Observatory at Newark, CA is nearing the end of its run. I’ve had a lot of good times in that little outbuilding, and I wanted sincerely to believe that a “tester shot” of the moon was not going to be the last photons captured here.

But it’s been raining for a couple of weeks now, that real intense kind of “it’s never going to stop” kind of rain, and I was starting to get nervous.

So when the astronomy gods finally cut me a break, I jumped on the chance to get some sky.

Trixie was still mounted up, and I tried her out on some DSOs, but found a small weakness in the mounting bracket which is preventing the guider from getting anything solid. Back the the drawing board, there. So what else is new? Anyway, I decided to pull Trixie and put up Veronica.

That went pretty quickly, all told, and I was able to get Veronica loaded, balanced, and focused before the clouds started rolling in. This is essentially my first DSO work since the GSSP last July, and as usual, the image shows a little rustiness.

An hour of 10min exposures was all I could get before the clouds took over. It was good to get some photons, but I’m really not all that impressed with the shot.

It was then clear the next night as well, so back out I went, and back into Ursa Major. I decided that if I was going to pull down a junky image, it might as well be a junky image of a new object, so I could impress myself later with “how much more skilled I am now”. So I chased M97, The Owl Nebula. This is an object that I would normally have avoided with Veronica, being a little too small to really show a lot of detail. Also, with The Dipper placed right over the house, I’m sure I was getting some heat bloom off the roof. shrug. The image turned out, eh, ok, just like I expected.

It’s clear again today, so I expect I’ll be able to go hunting again tonight. Maybe I’ll see if I can get the focus tighter. Or maybe chomp some Leo instead of Ursa Major. We’ll see.

Thanks again, Ad Astra Observatory. It’s been a good run.

The paint is dry on the pier topper, so I remounted it in the observatory.

As I put in each part, I checked that each was level. As I suspected, the top plate needed some small adjustments. Now it’s dead-on.

Once the pier topper was in, getting the NJP mounted up was a snap.

Pumpkin looks so tiny on top of that huge mount.

Welcome, NJP #4026, to your new home.

I headed out to the observatory this morning to level the pier. I had originally planned on it being a quick task, then ready for tonight (which is supposed to have some clear sky — we’ll see).

When I got out there, I decided that I really should do the maintenance on the pier topper that I’ve been putting off. The topper is made of steel, and it’s been slowly rusting since I got it in 2006. At this point, there were little “popcorn ceiling” type rust balls clinging to the surface all over. So I decided that now is a good time to get it done right; once the mount goes on there, I’m not going to want to move it again.

So I pulled the mount off of the pier (I figured out how to take out the CW shaft extension, too! Maybe Pumpkin will balance properly now…), and put the mount on the tripod for safekeeping. It’s nice having somewhere to put a big heavy object like that, especially when it’s almost the same height as the pier. The mount is still “portable”, but it’s a real grunter. I don’t think I’d want to set that up every night.

Then I pulled the pier topper, grabbed a wire brush and the drill, and proceeded to get off as much rust as I could. The surface feels pretty smooth now, but definitely still has a little bit of texture and looks like it will start to rust up again immediately.

Then I applied Rust-o-leum to the various parts of the pier topper. I had a choice of Black, Red, or Blue, and against my better judgment went with Black. It looks pretty cool anyway. I can’t remember what color the knobs are going to be on the new saddle for the NJP; maybe I’ll repaint once that gets here. But probably not. (:

So, now the pier topper is out in the sun drying for the afternoon. I’ll reassemble the rig tonight, and then get serious about the polar alignment.

orthogonality HOWTO

I was invited to spend the weekend in dark sky near Clear Lake, CA. My ex-boss owns some land up there and wanted to see the sky. A rare chance to see some dark sky during the height of the summer Milky Way is not to be lightly dismissed, so I set about packing up the observatory for a weekend away.

When I first moved into the observatory, I was fresh off of going to Shingletown Star Party 2 years in a row, and was used to setting up and tearing down the scope each night. I hated polar alignment, but for a night of visual, I could set up in 30m or so, observe for a couple of hours, and tear down. I had padded bags and boxes for everything.

Since I moved into the observatory, well, things have swelled up a little. The mount is bigger and heavier, the scope is bigger and heavier, and I finally succumbed to the need for a laptop, not to mention motor focusers, and a tangle of cables going to and fro. Also, I no longer have cases that fit all the gear. So “packing up the observatory” turns out to be a bit of a logistical nightmare.

I went to OSH and picked up a couple of storage bins. This is a good placeholder solution, but they don’t really make the best use of available space. I was in a hurry, and they got the job done. I ended up using 2 big bins (one for the head and one for the power and other random stuff, 2 briefcases (one for Pumpkin, and one for ST-4/Gemini electronics), 2 padded bags (Veronica and the legs), and a milk crate (CW and CW shaft). The tripod base didn’t have a case. I also brought along a few rugs for dust control and a couple of chairs for tables.

I tried not to overpack, and decided against bringing Wobble, a photo tripod, or the hubcap. I also forgot the binoculars at home.

Having stripped the observatory as bare as I could, I got the rig, me, and the dogs in the car for what turned out to be a 150-mile road trip.

The night was turning out perfectly; the 3-day moon had set behind a hill, Scorpius and Sagittarius were rising in the south, and an ever-brightening Milky Way was appearing between them.

Unpack the car, start to set up the mount…

I forgot the tripod base. I’m standing under dark sky, picturing it sitting there, under the kitchen counter, mocking me.

It was a total bonehead maneuver. And now, it’s totally impossible to set up the scope. Without a base, I can’t set up the mount at all, and without a mount, Veronica stays in the bag. We kicked around a few thoughts about improvising a base, but 8” aluminum pipe doesn’t just grow on trees.

We ended up doing a short sky tour with their alt-az non-motorized 4” achromat. It was not a bad scope, mind you, it’s just not Gemini + Veronica.

I’ll be driving back to Newark tomorrow to get the tripod base.

So, I’ll only get one day under dark sky with a camera. If I’d brought even the photo tripod and the hub cap, I could have at least been doing all-sky stuff. I was trying not to overpack. Something to consider.

But, this has been a good test run for “getting portable”. Now that I know how things fit in the Passat, I know that with the Rocketbox, I could have put wife & both kids & both dogs & the scope in the car, albeit without a ton of room for clothes or other gear. Without the dogs, it’s an easy fit. Also, I discovered that I need cases for *everything* (and that the “cases” I have are probably incorrect long-term). And that I need to figure out how the Tetris works to fit everything in the car.

And, most important, I need a CHECKLIST.

Even without power and with a cheesy finder on the scope, we had nice views of:
M7, M8, M16, M17, M4, and Jupiter.

M16, M17, M8, M7 were all easily naked-eye objects down at the horizon. I believe that I saw NGC7000 naked eye also — there’s a big cloud there, in any case. There is a ton of detail in the Milky Way from this site. There were hints of the Great Dark Horse (”I see a dark rainbow going over to Antares”). Very peaceful, very small light domes. A bit brighter than Shingletown, but still about 4 magnitudes (literally) better than my backyard.

In all, a nice night, with a bonehead oversight.

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 “spare”, my friend Art in WA offered to take a look at the Gemini and see if he could get it working right.

So I boxed up the Gemini head and shipped it off last night.

I just went out and mounted the new G-11, got it all balanced and loaded up with Veronica and Pumpkin. Since the last time this mount was turned on was in Florida, I have some polar alignment work ahead of me. But, Pempro should make short work of that.

It’s actually kind of refreshing being back on a non-GOTO G-11. It feels very familiar (I’ve only had the Gemini for a little over a year, before that I was on a G-11 much like this one), and somewhat free of complication.

I mounted Veronica, because I have had no problems getting things in Veronica’s FOV with manual setting circles (I left the encoders on the Gemini mount, just in case they are part of the problem).

I’m really looking forward to seeing how this new (temporary) mount performs under the stars.

Art Morton wrote:
> You are almost to the point where you could image from Germany.
Almost. I would need to put in some ethernet power and a garage door
opener for the roof. Then I could freak out the wife. (:

J

Howdy,

I’m sending this message because you inquired about a Nintendo camera
controller, (probably). I’m sorry I haven’t gotten back to you about

the DS camera controller thing, I’ve been inundated with requests, so
I can’t answer each email individually just yet. I’ll be contacting
you shortly with an update on the testing phase and let you know when
I’ll be able to make them available. I’m close to shipping, I just
need to do an intervalometer test of a digital clock for a few dozen
hours to make sure it’s not dropping any shots. Once the DS program is

ready, I’ll be contacting you to see if you are still interested.

As a quick reminder of what we’re talking about, this program / camera
cable can act as an intervalometer (timer or time-lapse device), high
dynamic range exposure tool, and because the software will be
updatable by downloading new versions, I’m open to adding new features
if feasible. Some suggestions have been Panorama calculator, moon/sun
rise/set based triggering, taking pictures based on the time of day,

astrophotography and aerial photography-specific features, and
anything we all come up with as we go along. (I’m currently writing a
DS program that reminds me of all of the custom function settings on
my camera, for example.)

The device will NOT read your images (although a few of you have
suggested this might be possible via wi-fi / eye-fi.) It’s not a do-it-
yourself project, We would supply you with everything you need for

your specific camera.

Supported cameras will include the entire Canon and Nikon DSLR range.
I’m sorry I can’t work with Sony and Pentax, etc. because I simply
don’t have access to that gear.

A little about myself, I’m a photographic technician for the visual
effects industry and I’ve had the good luck to work on-set for Star

Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Pirates, and some other movies.
This Nintendo DS endeavor is not meant to be a business, it’s a
project to make the gear we need to do our jobs as photographers
better in the field. Of course this could all be done with a computer,
but sometimes less is more and like iPods were to mp3 players, it is
my hope that a clean, simple and easy device will actually be more
useful because it will free you to concentrate on the creative aspects
of photography.

-Steve

I just picked up a Mac mini to use as an astronomy machine out in the observatory. Essentially, I need something that can run headless, and provide USB ports to the various gear on the mount.

This poses a problem, since the newly-purchased astronomy hub software that I’ve just bought, MaxDSLR v.4, only runs in Windows.

So I bought VMWare Fusion for the Mac, and installed the astronomy software there.

But now I am trying to VNC from a PC laptop over wireless to a Mac and into the VM running on that Mac. And it’s *slow*. So is it slow because of VNC? Because of VMWare? Because MaxDSLR is slow? Who knows?

I’m considering installing Win XP on the Mac and running everything natively. I’d prefer to keep it running Mac OSX (which I am beginning to like), but I just feel like anything I do is throwing good money after bad.

One thing that I definitely need to do is get better wireless reception in the observatory. Maybe a trip to Fry’s for a wireless repeater is required.

My friend Art has a very similar setup, and uses a Mac running VMWare at the mount to drive everything. The only difference seems to be that he’s connecting from another Mac. Argh.

It will all probably snap together suddenly at some point and just start really singing. On the other hand, it’s easy to imagine that I’ll never get it working right and the Russians will beat us to the moon in a cakewalk. sigh.

At 09:33 AM 3/17/2008 -0700, you wrote:
>On Mar 17, 2008, at 8:51 AM, Jimbo S. Harris wrote:

>>>My money, if I had any, would have burst into flame by now at
>>>AstroMart.
>>
>>Other than that QHY 5, I haven’t seen any StarShoot Autoguiders for
>>sale on the ‘mart
>
>At this time, I do not think you will see any other Orion StarShoots
>on the ‘Mart. Orion is having a challenge staying up with their

>orders, so I do not think you will see one used

I figured as much. $250 is pretty cheap. If I can get one new, I probably will.

>Speaking of pondering. The bracket is made and the Robo is on the
>NP-127, which seems extremely small to the C-11 or the SN-10. I do
>not know if it has round stars yet. It is clean……

Nice! Looking forward to a second First Light.

>>I figure if I’m going to saddle myself with spendy software and

>>force myself to learn a whole new workflow, I might as well get
>>guiding out of it, too.
>>
>>Only 3 days left on the demo.
>After all of this, I am not sure if I would buy Max in your case.
>There are other possible solutions that may make work flow a good deal
>easier and more direct with the equipment that you have.

You understand, of course, that I’ve already *bought* Max. I just haven’t

busted out the registration on it yet so I could in theory sell it on the
‘mart for full sticker, seeing how it’s unused and unregistered and all.

>I am not just not sure the expense is worth it. I know I would be trying
>other
>stuff…… hardware and software and work flow….

I’m still seriously considering this. Here’s what I come up with:

Have to have:
1 drive D70 bulb
2 read D70 files
3 drive guider
4 drive telescope
5 drive focuser

Nice to have:
6 autofocus

7 fewer open windows at a time
8 everything running in one OS
9 future expandability
10 choice of JPEG or not
11 choice of darkframes or not
12 sequences, grouping, calibration
13 inexpensive

solution: What I get: What I give up: Comments:

MaxDSLR 1,2,3,5,6,7,9,12 4,10,11,13 Max does a
lot of stuff in one package, and feels future proof. But the new workflow
adds
toughness, and it feels a little square-peg-round-hole and draconian with the
stuff
that “barely works” and the missing features (like telescope control).

DSLRShutter 1,2,3*,4,5,8,11,13! 6,7!,9,12 I picked
this set of programs because they’re all free (except NC and SD). Also
Nikon
Capture all of
these will run under MacOS except FocusMax.
PhD (* if not
ST-4) I can
continue to use this set of apps to get done most of what I want, and

Cartes du Ceil (or ScopeDriver) now
that my observatory seems more like it’s actually on the ‘net, visibility
is OK.
FocusMax
I gain back my JPEG workflow (although I lose the calibration groups, so
darks are
Registax
out)

The bottom line is that Max does a lot but costs me in workflow and also
requires that I run Windows on my Mac (which means I get to pay for Max and
then also for VMWare and then also fight M$ about the license for XP). I
think I have most of the kinks worked out of the workflow. But it’s
definitely a “if it ain’t broke” situation, because I don’t think that Max

is going to afford me the flexibility to change hardware at will.

Working with a bunch of free software will get the job done, but it’s lots
of separate apps and lots of individual configuration and going “all Mac”
may end up not working in the long run anyway (I don’ t think there’s a Mac
replacement for FocusMax, nor PhD if I keep the ST-4).

At the moment, I’m leaning towards keeping Max. I needed to learn to shoot

RAW anyway, right? And maybe the onerous task of processing the new images
is about the same as Registax. Now I just need to get Windows validated…

J