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Everything posted by Joel Shepherd
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Have reluctantly come to the conclusion that the "clear sky chart" is fantastically accurate ... except when it's not, which is about 50% of the time. #weatherishard
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After close to a month of rain and cloud it finally cleared up enough tonight to be worth dragging the scope out. Despite the near-full moon and lots of ambient light, managed to track down M94 and M3, both firsts (for me). Looking forward to the weekend now.
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Me: I'm torn between trying to take pictures or just looking at things. Wife: Well, that's why you [should] get two telescopes. ... I'm a lucky guy.
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Tore open my CG-4's declination gearing only to discover that most of the roughness is coming from an over-tightened sealed bearing on the fine adjustment shaft. Otherwise, pleasantly surprised by the quantity and quality of lube inside.
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Moon, fog, city lights ... My friend Jupiter is still shining through (with 5 moons?!).
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First attempt at drift aligning, on a cranky CG-4 mount. Not perfect but good enough for 10-15 second exposures. Happy, :-)
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Beautiful clear day: check. Clear sky chart shows an hour of cloudiness but otherwise fine: check. Telescope out: check. Clouds overhead: check. Clear sky chart now says 4 hours of overcast: check. This weather is making me sad.
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Finally got my secondary back into position, with the milk-bottle washer trick. Never tinkering with that mirror again!
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Collimation: The process by which one takes a well-adjusted reflector and, via a lengthy and delicate process, succeeds in misaligning on virtually every dimension possible.
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Bright moon. Good night for a new open cluster: NGC 663 in Cassiopeia. M92 was also looking sharp tonight, despite a lot of ambient light.
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"Three pairs" last night: two doubles (Alberio and Rho Hercules), two clusters (M13 and M92) and two nebula (M57 and M27). Finally learning how to aim this thing ... ;-)