The Sailor

I learnt many years ago to never look directly at anything at nighttime, I have always kept the target to the side of my vision and this made it more distinct. Another thing I do is if I do have that problem of having a fuzzy target is look through the eyepiece as above but also keep the other eye open looking at nothing in particular, for some reason it has been a help. Oh, seen the ISS going over last night, took me by suprise as that was the first time I seen it go over NW to SE, as I was setting up I had to grab a pair of binos and it was magic to see. Rather than a blob of light the main body and the panels were distinct :). Jim

I think this will be way things are for me Isabelle, I started out over a year ago snapping and videoing all the year, this year has really been a disaster :). The only thing that seems to have gone right is the upgrading of my gear and the downing grading of my bank balance :). Still, I can always get on with the gardening if the moon stays as bright :D. Jim

Night started well, a little cloud drifting east so decided to get out and play. Opened the obsy at 2330 hrs and got all ready, done my first star align and lo and behold, the sky filled with clouds. Abandoning the alignment I decided that whatever star was available I would use that as a guide star and play with the webcamss to see how tracking was holding. Using both the Meade LPI and the modded SPC900NC I spent the next hour hopping from gap to gap and checking all types of configurations, also used the Canon 450D on the main scope. Things started changing about 0200 hrs when the clouds started to clear and the moon shone in the clear sky, almost bringing daylight to the garden, it was not really what was wanted for skygazing. To make matters worse I had also been knocking my head off the balance weight again, this was getting to be a bad habit, it was then I decided to get to bed, a nice night but unfruitfull.

Nice Isabelle, you caught it :), good to be able to say you done it, well done :). Jim

I have to say that Stellarium has been so accurate from my position since I installed it. Each pass of the ISS has been good except obviously when it has passed into shadow and not been visable. Jim

Good on you Isabelle, I have already done 1, 2 and 3 but have to say that 3 was a cheat. I have a small refractor which I used just like a ships telescope, resting it on a wall, did not realy help as it was jumping all over the place as I tracked the ISS but I did get it :). I have tried Step 4 a few times, again a manual movement on the mount and the camera taking multi shots but again a washout. One day it will happen for you and I will be watching for that photo :). Jim

Well since the small road leads to an old peoples estate I doubt the council will cover/switch these off. As for switching them off, well as far as I am concerned that is criminal and I don't expect old people to carry a torch just so I can skygaze. Times have changed, people expect lighting and the way I see it if I want non-polluted skies then I travel to a dark place. I have built my observatory knowing that those lights are there so I have no excuse.

I have four of those lights around my garden, I sorted it by building an observatory, nice and dark inside :) Jim

Well done Ray, do watch it going over but only once I tried to get it with a handheld OTA, unworkable :(, maybe one day I will get round to just using the camera :). Thanks for showing. Jim

Lovely one Isabelle, good to know you have got all working now. Yes you are right, there are times when the photograph does not do what you see justice :). I have to a degree given up on the photographic side because due to the summer nights, I could just about see any clusters the other night, it seemed as though the sun had not set :( . What I will do on those type of nights will be to concentrate on guiding and ensuring I am getting it right for good photos. Again well done and hope all will be well for you :). Jim

Yes, England. Jim

Been a week since I wrote and it has been a busy one, decided to get myself a replacement laptop for the obsy, the orignal was falling over, steam driven!! I decided to get a secondhand one, same type as I am on now, knew it worked all the gear in the obsy so got it nice and cheap on fleabay. Just spent the last few days getting everything working, two mounts, cameras, webcams and extra monitor. So far all is well, remoting from the house went well but something I will keep to a minumum as I would rather be hands on. The great thing is I can now use Stellarium, PHD Guiding and a few other programmes without having to wait ages for something to happen, so a good week so far. Now where is all this clear sky so I can play with my new toys :).

Ha ha, yes Islobelle I have to agree with that, we are at natures mercy. I must say though that the last few weeks have been wonderful, not for astronomy but for the garden and nature has shown how colourful it can be. Sitting outside in the evening waiting for darkness, the smell of the flowers and the songbirds singing make life wonderful. Jim

What a night, just hope I don't have another like it, if I did not bump into the eyepiece I bumped into the balance weights. At one time I knocked myself so silly I thought about packing it in for the night. Don't know what was going on, know I am getting on but I seemed to act like a bull in a chinashop all the time, no damage to the gear but my head feels like I have done ten rounds in the ring, maybe I should get myself a hard hat!!! I seen some people have been complaining about the how little darkness there is at the moment, maybe they should pray to the creator and ask him to turn the big light out, probably get the same response as from the local councils regarding street lights :D Been playing with the DSLR now, took a few photos of messiers, all different timimgs and settings, just tests, the results have been nothing to write home about :). I now got my SPC900NC fixed, a few wires and a resistor came apart but all good now so will be testing that as well next night out.

A lovely clear day, opened the obsy and decided as there were some sunspots I would see what I could do. The sunspots and a blemish :( came out well, they are as follows, 1225,26,27,28 29 and 1231. Jim

Well done Isabelle, always a daunting task on the first foray. Had the same with my SCT, took over the kitchen, OTA on the cooker and me the other end leaning on the ironboard!!! Did make the mistake of asking my better half to help, disaster, so wore out the tiles walking back and forwrd for a couple of hours :D. Still, your all done now and can get out there and hopefully better seeing :). Jim

Well done neurostar, nice to get out for the first time and enjoy it. Don't worry about not knowing if you have the right object in your eyepiece, you will soon realise and learn where the main objects are. Regarding being on your own, see what clubs/societies are in your area, make contact and go on from there. After awhile you will soon realise that when you are with people you talk about the equipment you have and what you seen but when you are actually star gazing you tend to be on your own lost in the eyepiece oblivious to your sourroundings :). Jim

With a large cloud covering comming from the west I went out last night expecting just an hour or two of gazing, well had to stop after five hours of it, bed was beckoning my tired old bones :). A wonderful night, a bit of cloud which did not affect seeing so it was wonderful to sweep the skies. Found a couple more messiers, each time I used them as a focal point and took in the area round them. Tried out the CV-M50 camera, was good, gave good definition on stars but was not able to use it on planetary so that will have to wait. Still learning about it, loads of DIP switches on the back so time will tell. After a good night I went to bed and slept well :), looking forward to another night, maybe tonight :).

My experimentation continues, now that I have the mobile power sorted I decided to get another project I had on the backburner up and running. I seen a camera on eBay last year, a bargin at £20, it is a JAI CV-M50, a mono 1/2" CCD, been lying around since then, had tested it and knew it worked. The only problem I had with it was the power cable, well yesterday I got someone to fix a power/video cable to the plug and tested it with the power pack this morning, a fantastic bit of kit. To see what was on the screen I actually had to bring the brightness down as low as possible and cover the telescope hood to a third. It will be interesting to see what it will be like at night with the brightness fully open, any video will be interesting so watch this space :)

Hello Theo, wall to wall cloud here so no solar watching today :(. I see there are five sunspot regions at the moment, 1224 looks nice and wide. Jim

Well done Isabelle, nice... Have to say I am with you on this one, my eyesight is not the best now, wear contact lenses as a norm but still have to put specs on for reading an suchlike so when I am at the eyepiece they rest on my forehead. Since I am now using the refractor with a 2" eyepiece I can now see the "smudge" and they jump out at me, no colour but certainly some specks within :). But have to be honest with you, if I did not have the GoTo I would find it hard to find anything without starhopping, many is a time I have taken a wrong turn and had to backtrack but that is skywatching :). Jim

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 test run, with the mount sitting beside the laptop I put it on Polaris in Stellarium and left it running all night. This morning, switching all off I checked the battery and found it had run down to 50%, next job was to recharge the battery. A solar panel is attached and so far all has gone well, half of what was used is already back, hopefully this will be used for the DSLR as well. Just took the Canon power lead and cut the cig plug off, put a marine plug on and held my breath whilst I threw the power switches, the camera lit up in all the right places and no smoke, success :), a little more for the battery but don't seem a problem.

Well done Colin, you have done the first one, next will be easier :) Jim

Ray, I agree with you 100%, the time and effort of setting up is offset by the amount of targets at your fingertips. Having my own observatory is a blessing in that I walk in switch on and although I do a 3 star alignment no matter what I am ready to go in minutes to travel the skies knowing that what I want to see will be in my EP. The "club" I belong to are the opposite, they are people who arrive on a bicycle with a 1000 candlepower torch and love to shine it all over the place pointing out the constellations, and a club night is all about lectures on long gone peoples and blackholes!! I have been asked not to bring my GoTo gear to their nights out, probably makes them look bad :D. Anyway enough of this, you gear looks great, quite a big GoTo :D. Jim

I have had the same problem with my refractor and the only way round it was to put a diagnol on to get the focus on the camera. With the SCT it is no problem, straight on, focus and shoot. Jim