theropod

The mount saw its first use this evening. I didn’t have much issue with either the handset or the polar alignment. Where I ran into problems was with my diy finder scope not being anywhere near right. The finder that comes with the C-90 is a bad bad joke, and my rigged up replacement is off by a mile. It didn’t used to be! Anyway after I finally got Vega centered in the FOV, and accepted into the handset the mount went right to Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and that blazing bright moon. I called it a night early because of that moon washing out the entire sky and a rapidly dropping temperature. We are supposed to have our first frost of the season tonight, and it feels like that is going to happen. This goto stuff is so seriously cool! The mount is rock steady and tracks like a dream. Jupiter was showing off until it started dipping into more atmosphere. I bumped the mount a couple times and the target was still dead center in the FOV afterwards. When I ended the session and parked the mount in its home position Polaris was dead center n the FOV of my OTA. I’m gonna love this. Next time out I’ll have that finder sorted, and do a good 3 star alignment. Then I’ll see if I can find some faint fuzzies. I still have to learn more about using this handset, and the menu tree therein, but I think I’m off to the races.

Tonight! The maiden voyage of the little Skywatcher will be tonight. The sky is cold blue, the air is dry, and hardly any breeze. If I can’t have a little fun on the EP tonight something is seriously wrong, and I’m getting a nap in to make sure I don’t get drowsy before the good stuff happens. Moon or no moon. I’ve been giving serious thought to why the idea of leveling an equatorial mount came to be. Could it be, that like me, some early astronomers used the OTA for rough polar alignment, and having the reticle crosshairs level and plumb more closely matched charted Polaris placement? If that erect reticle doesn’t look right one could tell the mount wasn’t level. Additionally, if the tripod is set to level/plumb isn’t the mount more gravitationally centered, and stable by nature? If the mount is level adding a weight to the center would then add to this stability, and I have done this myself to combat wind (futilely at times). No, tracking and goto are not effected by an out of level mount, but isn’t a more stable mount a good thing? What could it hurt to take the time to get the mount level?

I bought a set of small metric Allen wrenches, and the 1.5 didn’t fit, and was slightly too big. The store didn’t have screws in metric that small, sigh. I took one of my old wrenches and did my whet stone thing. If one ever has to do this take your time and work LIGHTLY side to side along the flats. Stop grinding and check often! That reticle now matches what I’m used to looking at, and more importantly matches the app PS Align. The 0 (zero) etched marking is straight up and the view through the eyepiece matches the app exactly with my OTA pointing at about where Polaris should be. I’ve also calibrated the polar scope. I used a solitary pine tree lives across the valley from us, about 3 miles away, and served as my target for this chore. It’s what I have used to align my finder with the OTA. I’m happy with the 180° centering. This only took 10 minutes or so. Now I need to check for cone error still, but this old man just ran out of steam today (see below). Besides, high thin clouds (not forecast!) rolled in just as the sun was setting. Sigh. I screwed up and mowed my lawn (for the last time this year I hope) in anticipation of setting up the mount tonight. I should have waxed my wife’s vehicle just to ensure a trifecta of rain storm inducing acts! It was tiring, but needed done. I think I have the SynScan somewhat figured out, and can’t wait to get going now that I have things set the way my OCD demands. Sorry to ramble.

Thanks, Seelive. For some reason the board software didn’t notify me of your post. Odd! I am concerned with both aspects of the reticle. I want the 12 o’clock to actually point straight up. I’ve been using that arrangement for years with my iOptron SkyTracker, and the way the reticle looks now just bothers me. Sure, I could use an imaginary 12 o’clock point, and cipher out where Polaris should line up, but that seems like an invitation for error to me. Yes, I know I could rotate the RA axis to get things straightened up, but I just don’t like that idea. I want the scope as close to plumb as possible when aligned, and set that as the home position. In the end it should make my setup much quicker, and familiar, to get it the way I want. OCD taking hold. As for centering the reticle crosshairs on a fix point as the mount pivots I am sure that’s no big deal. I tried mounting a low power rifle scope on my barn door tracker, and quickly discovered how hard it is to use the windage and elevation knobs to achieve this goal. That’s why it has no scope at all now. It should be a simple matter to use those 3 grub screws to get the crosshairs to stay put while rotating. Very similar to adjusting out the finder/spotting scope for the main OTA. I am going to the hardware store tomorrow and will pick up a small set of both metric and imperial allen keys. Surely between the two I can find something that fits. I have a very nice whet stone, and I’ve made Allen keys fit odd sizes in the past by slowly grinding on the flats. It just takes forever to do this, and I’d rather not. I’ve also read elsewhere about the pointy ended screws used in the mount being problematic, and will see if said store might have cup ended screws while I’m there. If not there are a million options on fleaBay. I just have to buy a handful. I saw where one guy used knurl ended screws to eliminate the tooling altogether. Again, thanks!

Back in March I went through the process of rebuilding the engine in my ‘92 pickup truck. The old radiator fan was made of plastic, and cracks were developing. I ordered a new one from a “major” supplier, which didn’t fit. After several emails I got a return authorization and sent it back on my dime. Yesterday I got an email confirming the refund. Seven months is a long time to hold someone else’s money. Amazing how quickly these outfits can charge ones credit card, and how glacial they are when it comes to refunds.

Still haven’t figured out what size Allen wrench is needed to manipulate these tiny grub screws, but I have found out that these are M3 X .5mm thread type. None of my many Allen wrenches, and miniature tips used for laptop repair, fit. I’ve seen where someone out the in the cyber world replaced these hex socket grub screws with 10mm long knurled head screws to be able to calibrate the polar scope by hand. I may go that route myself. A rather large fastener company exists close by, and I will visit them within a few days. That won’t do me any good unless I can get these grub screws out! I could modify one of my oversized wrenches with a whet stone, but I would then have a one-trick tool. I simply cannot believe the polar scope comes from the factory this far from right, and seems to be a common issue with this mount. If one tried to use the polar scope as-is it would be super frustrating. Those in the Southern Hemisphere would be seriously screwed as the etched star pattern would put the scope at least 20° off, and subsequent stellar alignment would be a nightmare. Even modest magnification would put target stars miles from the FOV. I know how to drift align. My permanently set barn door tracker employs this method. It doesn’t even have a polar scope. I’m NOT going to go through that process every time I set up the mount. It’s been cloudy, foggy and serious rain is about to set in which is forecast to last for a week, so I’ve only been able to look at my mount, and worry about grub screws. Oh, the third hurricane for the year is about to come ashore south of us. It may be weeks before the mount sees its first use. Sigh...

I’ve a Bosch surveyors tripod I use in my meteor fall efforts, and I love it. Solid as can be, light and weatherproof.

Like golf astronomy can be prohibitively expensive for many (I am lucky enough to do both). I’d love to see schools given the bare bones needed so hat kids could build their own scopes, and their own barn door trackers. Many schools have golf teams and I see no reason they couldn’t have astronomy clubs. I’ve never had big scope fever, and actually love the challenge small scopes represent. Imagine if Galileo had my C-90 Mak and a goto eq! Sparking a kids mind with a small inexpensive scope could give us another Sagan.

Does anyone know what size Allen wrench is required for that set screw shown above?

I took a look through my polar scope, and can’t believe how far off it is! I set the altitude to match my location (approximately), leveled the mount and the reticule is at least 10° tilted to the west. Do I loosen that tiny socket hex/allen key as shown below, twist the scope and snug it back down when it’s where I want it? Nothing in the manual about this. Am I correct in thinking that if a level the mount and hang a plumb string I can get the up/down crosshairs to match I’ll be pretty close? EDIT: I just watched a video and now understand that there are two other such socket/allen screws, and how to GRADUALLY bring the crosshairs into the correct position.

Sure highlights the peak night of 20-21!

Hoping to have my new mount sorted before then, and the weather cooperates. Thanks for the heads up.

I’ve been wanting a goto equatorial mount for a couple years now, and I had my sights set on an iOptron CEM25P. Up until now my main interests has centered on meteor falls, but occasionally I’ve peeked at Andromeda, the great nebula in Orion, and yearned for something beyond a ball head and fighting every inch of the way. The pandemic, as we all know, has messed up the supply chain for all things astronomy related, and my first choice of mounts just wasn’t to be had. My procrastination, for who knows what reason, forced me to look for alternatives. I pulled the trigger now because of my health issues forced me to face the fact that I’m not getting any younger, and if I want to do this astronomy thing half way seriously I better get to it. I did spend a good amount of time researching this little mount, and it seems it will fill my needs quite well. I’m currently the owner of a little Celestron C-90 Mak, and the mount should handle that pipsqueak scope easily. The Skywatcher should leave me some overhead for a larger scope in the future, as well as a guide scope and imaging camera. I understand that the drive train may need tweaking, and a little tuning here and there to get the mount to peak performance, but that’s down the road a ways. I’ve already mounted and balanced the C-90, and I’m confident the mount is more than capable. It is a little cheap of Skywatcher to not include a power supply with the mount, but I have a spare 12 volt battery that should work well enough. I’m suspect of the cigarette lighter type plug, and may rig up another male barrel jack that has a direct connection to the battery. I also find the lack of illumination of the polar scope somewhat cheap. My iOptron SkyTracker pro, a simple single axis tracker, has this feature. Yes, I know I can shine a torch into the objective to see the reticle, but adding a tiny red LED was just too much trouble? I need to find/buy a reticule eyepiece for the C-90, but that can wait until I’m ready to start imaging. I’m nowhere near ready for that, and will start off just observing. I can probably get “close enough” by spitballing the alignment stars for now. All in all I’m pleased, but I have not applied power to the mount (I just unboxed and assembled it this morning). I’m going to read the provided literature a couple times more and make sure I am not screwing up something critical. Any advice one would care to offer I’m encouraging you to offer it! For all those in the lower Mississippi valley I apologize in advance for the weeks of thick cloud cover that’s about to set in.

The frame before and after this shot should be the tell. If this is a meteor, which it doesn’t look like one to me, there will be nothing in those frames. The reason I don’t think it is a meteor is the symmetry between starting and ending points. Meteors usually start off faint and grow in brightness until they burn up, or stop emitting light. I can’t tell which end is supposed to be the beginning.

The batteries themselves serve as a “shock absorber” for the excess voltage. Most solar charge controllers simply dump the output of the solar array directly into the battery bank. In a flooded lead/acid battery this presents no problem, but for sealed lead/acid, or absorbed glass mat, batteries this arrangement is unacceptable as over voltage will bubble the electrolyte and render the battery useless. Flooded lead/acid batteries just bubble a little, which mixes the electrolyte and this is a good thing as long as the proper level is maintained. The “load” option is a means to use the solar output for some other purpose when the batteries have reached a “full” state of charge. The controller will stop allowing current to flow into the batteries at a set point-somewhere around 14.5 V for most single stage controllers. My charge controller for our off grid system is a multi stage controller that changes what the batteries get depending on their state of charge, and once every 4 weeks goes into auto equalization mode where the uppermost voltage is held for 3 hours with very low amperage. Bottom line: if your battery is a flooded lead/acid a little extra voltage will not hurt it at all as long as the plates are never exposed to air.

Only if we can build entirely self sufficient generational ships with massive radiation shielding sent on a one way trip could we accomplish such a thing in this century.

NASA also says most meteors are sand grain sized, which Might be true, but much larger bodies have, do and will enter our atmosphere. Many reach the ground. Antarctic glacial talus piles are literally filled with meteorites. The ocean floors have to be littered with meteorites that have sunk into the sediment. Over millions of years there have been some monsters. End Cretaceous bolide anyone? This last event only goes to show how newspeak is employed. Unless this object was made of pumice there’s a very good chance it could either have reached the ground or exploded, like that Russian bolide, high in the atmosphere. NASA is downplaying how much a threat an object this size would pose if a major city were ground zero.

Then you have to sell something/somewhere that appeals in a way they desire, but just happens to have dark skies. Nasca lines, Easter Island, Machu Pichu, Badlands, Big Bend National Park etc. Lots of way cool places just happen to also have nice dark skies. Guile and distraction!

The storms held off until near daylight, and I stayed out until I just couldn’t stay awake anymore. The pattern of mostly large fireballs has extended into last night. I saw at least 20 very nice Perseids, and most left nice trains. One was exceptional and bright as an arc welder. Of course each and every one fell out of frame and I didn’t manage to put a single one into a data file. Still, just getting a window between storms was good enough. By next August a shiny new DSLR and wide angle lens will be riding on my tracker. Maybe the satellite swarms won’t be in place by then.

Yes, we were lucky to get the viewing time we did. While only scant clouds are out right now some big storms are forecast for tonight. Maybe I can have a couple hour window before they roll in. While frustrated I’m not throwing in the towel just yet. The Perseids are spread out over several days, so hope springs eternal. I also find it curious that such a high percentage of this year’s falls were large. Sorting of comet material like this isn’t a thing, is it? Has earth’s gravity worked to rake down all the smaller bits and we are now left with bigger hunks less effected by our gravity well? Of course our observations could be anecdotal, and others saw no such clastic sorting.

Isn’t there more to some of these trains than mere water vapor? The ash from burning the solids surely must be a part of what persists/lingers. Think of smoke from a plasma metal cutting tool. Even small amounts of metals or stone would contribute to such a train.

A tear slowly slid down his cheek. The holy grail for meteor hunters. This one is not worthy.

From my north central Arkansas USA location the Perseids were indeed on the low end of the displays I’ve seen in the past. The up side was a greater percentage of fireballs. My wife and I saw a long duration Perseid that crossed 3/4 of our viewable sky, changed colors 3 times and left a persistent train. We also saw a few alpha Capricornids, all of which were fireballs. These entered from the west, were bright gold and had very defined heads. One of these stuttered as if it were tumbling at a stupid high RPM. This was Saturday night. Since then a bend in the jet stream has ended our summer delight, and we’ve had 3.75” of rain over the past 3 days. Clouds have been pervasive even when it isn’t actively raining. It’s 8:30 am here, and the fog is far to dense to fly a small plane, much less see the sky. I managed to capture 4-5 small Perseids, but I’m disappointed to say the least.

Really is a study in frustration isn’t it? My thing is meteors, and our forecast in north central Arkansas is a close match to the graph you posted. Starting tomorrow the chances of rain go up and stay up for the next week. Almost exactly same thing happened last year too. Perhaps next year I will uproot myself and make a trip somewhere out to the western US, like New Mexico or Big Bend national park in Texas. Maybe I’ll have time to put together an all sky cam as you have done by then. My wife and I did lay out Saturday night and we were rewarded with 5 very nice fireballs. Only one was a Perseid, and all the rest were apparently alpha Capricornids. These were bright gold speed demons with persistent trains, and all entered from the west at low angles. The one big Perseid was a monster that took 3.5 seconds to cover 3/4 of the sky and the train changed colors several times. Naturally none of these were in a part of the sky where my camera was aimed.

...begins thinking about taking solar imaging seriously... Stupid cool results. What’s amazing is this is an order of magnitude better than what the pros could do when I was a kid, but then again heliocentric theory had just been questioned back then.