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My, what great EYES you have!

May 28th, 2011 Friday night means many different things to many different people. Since darkness takes longer to settle at this time of year, weekend evenings mean one thing for me: time to settle outside with my telescope since this is impossible during the weekdays when I have classes to teach the next day. At my latitude during this time of year, most of the constellations are not easily discerned until past 11:00. Full blackness makes its way to the north around midnight. This m

stolenfeather

stolenfeather

Fri 27th May 11

With little clear sky the last few nights my thoughts turned to portable power. Although I have been using 12v in the observatory it was a fixed option but now I have decided to use my CG-5GT as a Grab n Go it will need power. I bought a power pack off eBay and modified it by taking the compresser attachment off the back, this allowed it to fit perfectly into a flight case. I had a load of electrical pieces from my sailing days so these have been installed and tested okay. Last night I done a te

The Sailor

The Sailor

Collimating

I've had a natural fear of collimating and thus far upto now have not tried. Tonight I watched a few videos on youtube and took a crack at it, one of which I've linked below. It's quite tricky holding the secondary mirror trying to align it with the focuser. The other problem on the secondary mirror, is that celestron have somehow cross-threaded one of the adjustment screws. This caused me no end of trouble. I pricked a hole in a black lens cap, which I then used to collimate. The main mirror

tibbs1972

tibbs1972

Stumped by Metrication

Next in line is was the second axis. I added the code, debugged it, and got the slew working for it. All relatively simple as it was a cut a paste from the RA axis but without needing to make it track, same error feedback but it keep calculating the same position, sounds a waste but once GOTO and corrections for misalignment and atomspheric effects on position get added it will be changing continuously. anyway.. added the circuitry, tested, added the motor drive chip and motor and bingo.. w

rfdesigner

rfdesigner

Tue 24th May 11

Came out this evening, a nice clear sky and next to no wind, a big difference from last night :). Thanks to Astroboot I was able to get my guider attached with the rings during the day and after an alignment I was able to calibrate everything. After a good look round the sky I attached the guide cam, a Meade LPI and checked if the work I had do so far was okay. I sent the mount to Vega, spot on in the eyepiece, turning round it was with satisfaction I seen Vega on the cam screen on the laptop, g

The Sailor

The Sailor

Amazing Astrophotography

Hi guys, I discovered this astrophotography website today, it is a program to present a collection of world landmarks against celestrial attractions. there are some amazing photographs in the gallery. it is www.twanight.org enjoy Ben:)

benbarter

benbarter

My Start to Astronomy

Hello all, Since I'm home for the summer (i just graduated college, yay!!!) and have some nice free time I decided to try out the blogs on here :) I'll sort of just go through my experiences as a beginner astronomer. I feel this will help me stay on track with starting astronomy and maybe someone will read it :P So far, I haven't made much progress with actual star gazing, but I've done a lot of background stuff. I've spent a lot of time reading forums on here :) I've researched telescopes and

neurostar

neurostar

23rd May pics eos utility

May 23rd Hi all was out last night in the cold ,temp 7c 5% clouds and windy i took the frac out to test the cannon eos utility software out as it lets you view the pics you took on the screen of the laptop with in seconds focus was a issue i made some home made masks wich can be see below 1 and 3 do the job just fine 2 was a fail,the thought of the volcanoe ash put me of take in the reflector out side last night did get a few tests 5x5sec subs and darks run final pics were ok on photo bucket w

todd8137

todd8137

Problems with Saturn.

Saturn is giving me some problems. For the last week, I've tried imaging with my DSLR camera to no avail. All I get is a white blob on the image. I know the telescope is ok, as through the 20mm and 15mm lenses I get a crystal clear image. I've tried every exposure time and ISO setting I can think off, but the prime focus direct mount method just doesn't work with planets. I decided to grab my old £30 webcam and tape it to the Cannon T-ring adapter. After finding some free webcam software, to my

tibbs1972

tibbs1972

SynGuider

Hello All First blog I think Can anyone advise me as to using the Synguider through a Off Axis Guider i will using a Celestron80ed as the image maker and a uprated web cam for the final image via a dell laptop. The mount I will be using is a SkyWatcher EQ5 Pro goto. I live in the centre of a city so the best I can expect is about 2++ on the seeing scale and 3 on the Magnitude scale. as I can remeber crystal radios I used to build them Im not too sure Ive posted this Damn them Dinosours

Robertt

Robertt

SynGuider

Hello All First blog I think Can anyone advise me as to using the Synguider through a Off Axis Guider i will using a Celestron80ed as the image maker and a uprated web cam for the final image via a dell laptop. The mount I will be using is a SkyWatcher EQ5 Pro goto. I live in the centre of a city so the best I can expect is about 2++ on the seeing scale and 3 on the Magnitude scale

Robertt

Robertt

Moving forward :)

Well all has been a little quiet - I blame the end of the contract and possibly the new gf.. However now have a new laptop winging it's way to me to replaced my dodo, along with a new job and a offer of help developing AOSX! I'm spending this week merging the AOSX versions together before I put the code up on the repository and we start pushing forward with development. I've spent time looking through EQMOD and although we don't have access to the EQ control DLL sources, it should be straight fo

NickK

NickK

god and the night sky

Hi all me and my daughter who`s 12 was just looking at some pics of Lyra we had taken the other night and out the blue, she sais "dad if god is true why can`t we see were he lives ?" me be in a non beleaver in any religion said am not sure because i did not want to push my view on to her, but it does bring to mind if religion was true and god created the universe .why would are planets out of zillions be chosen the other thing she said was that ,how did we start to worship a man when we had wor

todd8137

todd8137

Sat 21th May 11

Spent the day playing about in the obsy and garden, worked on the composting in the garden :D, and in the obsy I worked on what to do with my spare mount. Was not able to sell it so I have decided to use it in two ways, the head will be used in the obsy with a camera on it, already tested and both mounts work together in Stellarium at the same time :). The other use will be as a Grab n Go, bought a 12v pack for this at knockdown price so happy there. It's been a clear sky today so looking forwar

The Sailor

The Sailor

A different kind of viewing,..

May 20th, 2011 My last journal entry was almost 1 month ago and I couldn't believe how different nearly 30 days made in the night sky. It took me a couple of minutes to reorient myself to the stars above since they seemed to be shunning my presence. Saturn pointed me in the right direction but after being mesmerized by its brilliance once more, I found myself drifting off into a different area of space, one much closer to home. I breathed in deeply. The night is a marvelous world i

stolenfeather

stolenfeather

Fri 20th May 11

Setup just after dusk and alignment went well, up to now have added two more Messiers to the list. Been quite an enjoyable night so far, no wind and the temp is nice, the clouds that threathened earlier never got to me so been clear so far :). At the moment I am using the refractor for the Messiers and the SCT for wandering around, just looking and taking it all in, no cameras or webcams, plenty of time later. Right, coffee break over, back out :). Well I got just under another two hours out of

The Sailor

The Sailor

cant find

i'm having trouble finding galaxies and nebulae. i found saturn but thats it! can anyone help me thanks

john123

john123

got my scope

i got my skywatcher 1200/200 and its big. got it today and the skies are clear as hell! ( or heaven). taking it out for a spin tonight. thanks

john123

john123

My video of the Kennedy Space Center

I did not know what to expect when Steven and I planned our trip to Florida. However, there was one day I really looked forward to,... the last one. That was the day when Steven and I would finally visit the Kennedy Space Center. That was also the moment where we would meet and discuss with a veteran astronaut during a lunch / question period. We would also see the magnificent nature at the National Wildlife Refuge that Cape Canaveral is known for. I was simply "blown away" by it all

stolenfeather

stolenfeather

My CCD Journey : 5

Another evening with the 6SE. One of the difficulties I have had is in getting objects anywhere near focus - there are fewer stars in the field and when they are out of focus they seem to be WAY out of focus, so decided to have some fun with Vega, which is bright enough to appear on the screen anyway. Discovered that I need to give the focus knob three 'rotates' to the left (from my 32mm e/p) when it is just the CCD. Maybe I should explain that a 'rotate' is, I would guess, about 60 degrees. I

Demonperformer

Demonperformer

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