For amateur astronomers, a “sucker hole” is when it looks clear enough to set up, but as soon as you’re ready to get started, it clouds up again, and you feel like a dope. We’ve been waiting for Spring to get started for what seems like forever. I first heard spring peepers March 9, and … Read more
After I got a glimpse of Pan-STARRS, it looked like it would be clear enough to open the Hut. I wanted to run some more v-curves (calibration runs) in FocusMax, but apparently I had the steps set too small and the center focus position set too far off. So the run took forever and didn’t … Read more
It’s been a fairly blue day and I had hopes of glimpsing Pan-STARRS. I went out after sunset, and between the crescent moon and the sun is a beautifully textured but mostly opaque mass of cirrus. Quite a lovely evening but not a glimpse of the comet through the binoculars. I was helped by Callie … Read more
Periodically there’s a thread on the AstroPhysics forum on why the scope isn’t exactly on target, and sometimes a lot off target, after start up and un-parking. There are lots of mechanical reasons for this: if the optics of the scope are not parallel to the scope’s axis (“unorthogonality”); flexure of the scope in relation … Read more
On a rare clear night, I wanted to improve the auto-focus routine, and spent some time getting it pretty close, Then I picked a promising object somewhat at random, which turned out surprisingly well. NGC 2775 has a very tight spiral structure with very fine detail that reminds me of M63, the “sunflower” galaxy, but … Read more
Yet another weird entry in the NGC, NGC 2371-2, is a lovely bi-polar planetary nebula that got two names because it visually looks sort of like two separate objects. Images make it clear that both objects are part of the same expanding shell of a fine planetary. This was a really crisp clear night, in … Read more
My friend and neighbor Mel is going to help me make my first Dob. He’s a retired tool-and-die guy, and knows how metal works. I’ve been studying David Kriege and Richard Berry’s excellent book on the topic, The Dobsonian Telescope. Per their recommendations, we are beginning with the mirror cell, and between the odds … Read more
I’ve been thinking about the problem of evaluating my flat field lighting and target, and two approaches came to mind. One is to make some flats, rotate the camera 180 degrees, make more flats, and then measure the difference. I haven’t done that, but it seems like it should work. The other method is to … Read more
No moon, the evening started with thin cirrus clouds that disappeared, I think an hour or so after sunset. With those kind of clouds, I’m never sure, I think they are actually there to make halos and generally degrade the image, but you can’t see them. I thought good enough for a focus run with … Read more
Last night was a nice transparent night, the moon about a day from full. Jupiter hovered an inch from the Moon’s head. A good night for fooling with the system. My polar alignment should be pretty good, but the scope still doesn’t know where it’s pointing. My Meade finder scope often has a mind of … Read more