TAG Veronica
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M31, The Great Andromeda Galaxy
Veronica’s FOV is too tight to get all of Andromeda, so this is just a shot of the central region of the galaxy. M32 and M110 were hugging the edges of the […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M27, The Dumbbell Nebula in Vulpecula
I tried a longer integration time on M27 (2 hours’ worth of 3-minute images vs. an hour of 2 min)… I think that I’ve reached the limit of what I can achieve […]
Deep Sky / Focuser / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M8, The Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius
An hour of M8 with Veronica, G11, motor focuser. I could use some more detail of the outlying areas (there are some nice dust globs out there), but when I tried to […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M17, The Swan Nebula in Serpens
I tried 2 minute subframes, but that blew out the red channel, so I switched to 1 minute.
Astro knowledge / Deep Sky / Focuser / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M20, The Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius
First attempt at the Trifid with Veronica. The G11 and the motor focuser are really helping. It’s so low that I had to wait for it to rise above the doorway of […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography / Maintenance
NGC 6960, The Witch’s Broom, part of the Veil Nebula in Cygnus
Another attempt at “The Witch’s Broom” portion of the Veil. Despite this being almost 3 hours of integration time, This still came out pretty dim and noisy. Maybe 3-minute subframes would be […]
astro 6.28.2007
got new motorized focuser today. Finally got a purple focuser from Moonlite! cool. The software took a little monkeying around to get it installed, and I’m still trying to figure out how […]
Astro knowledge / Solar System Photography
Animation of Moon at 7 to 10 days
Moon at 7 to 10 days. Shot on 4 consecutive days from June 22 through June 25, 2007. Here’s what I have so far on my “all phases of the moon” project. […]
Moon at 10 days (1st quarter +3)
Moon at 10 days (1st quarter +3).
Moon at 9 days (1st quarter +2)
Moon at 9 days (1st quarter +2). Decided to try 1/1600th instead of 1/400th now that the moon’s a little brighter. Might be good in a couple of days; should have used […]
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.