TAG Observatory
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 / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
NGC 2237, The Rosette Nebula in Monoceros
An example of serendipity. I was trying to find this nebula, was using GOTO (on the CG-5GT), couldn’t be sure I had it, so I only shot one frame of it. Turns […]
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 […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M42, The Great Orion Nebula
Never thought it would take this long to get back to M42… This was my original attempt, a stack of ten 2min subframes. Here’s the image with some more data added (details […]
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
M81 and M82, Spiral Galaxies in Ursa Major
M81 and M82, Galaxies in Ursa Major Edge-on galaxy (Cigar-shaped) M82 and neighbor M81. First shots in awhile. Got some good weather all the way through December and into January, finally took […]
Re: roof settling fix?
I hadn’t heard from you therefore I assumed all was good. For the track question. We use a pry bar to lift
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M20, The Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius
I am continually amazed at how much data the modified camera is picking up down in the light polluted muck near the horizon. The weird “box” artifact is from the application that […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
NGC 6888, The Crescent Nebula in Cygnus
This is my first attempt at the Crescent Nebula. I was surprised at how well it showed up in the final image. Lots of tendrils.
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M27, The Dumbbell Nebula in Vulpecula
This is some more testing with the newly-modded D70. 30 seconds has a lot of detail, but 2 minutes grabs even more.
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.