Welcome to my observatory

[glennbech]

I can use my parent's cabin whenever I want, and it is just 40 minutes away by car. There is light pollution there as well, but not nearly as much as around my home. The sky can be excellent, and I've had some pretty good naked eye session in the past!

As I wrote in an earlier post, I have sold off all my imaging gear to pursue visual astronomy for a while. After over six years of owning multiple telescopes, I can count on a hand or two the times I have looked down an eyepiece. I will take more pictures in my life, probably with a permanent observatory of some sorts to reduce set up times.   

I park my car 100 meters from the cabin and use a baby stroller to get all my equipment with me in one go. 

Once there I can light a fire and get the cabin warm and cozy. The cabin is very traditionally decorated in line with my parent's taste in interior design. 

On my first night of observing I got cold weather -13c (9f) and close to 100% relative humidity. I had to de-ice my telescope a couple of times during the night! 

The sky was far from perfect but a lot better than what I have at home. With a half moon and humid air, the sky was pale blue, and I soon realized that I would not bag any faint DSOs that night! 

   

In the above picture, I think it is evident that the air is reflecting light. 

I was stunned by the crisp sharpness of the moon seen through my 10mm Vixen SLV eyepiece. Take into account that I have only used the stock skywatcher eyepieces before. They have not been treated well. The Vixen 20 SLV, 10 & 15 mm NLVs were a huge upgrade that did not blow my budget. The build quality and feel of the 20 SLV was exceptionally good.   

I got some lovely views of the Pleiades, Hyades and double cluster with my newly  William Optics SWAN 33mm, 70fov 2" eyepiece. With the 621 mm Megrez 90 it covers 3.4 degrees of sky, in practice making it my finder scope. I aim in the general direction, center on a known star, and use it to star hop.

Using this technique, I quickly found M51 using pre-planned sketches made with Stellarium and Photoshop stored in the Evernote cloud. Please note that I have entered telescope-  and eyepiece data into Stellarium to simulate field of view. When I get to Alkaid, I can use 24 Cvn to hop to M51. The object looked like one big smudge with uniform brightness. As I said, not the best night to DSO hunt.      

I put some extra logs on the fire and slept a bit until 01 am in the hope that the quality of the sky would somehow be dramatically better after the moon had set. It did not, so I packed my gear and drove home. I will report more from this site, and I know I can get some "deep" views from the there when conditions are right!

 

[saac]

Wow, what a fantastic place.  I'd be quite happy just to spend time in the cabin never mind doing any astronomy.  When you get good conditions it must be amazing.  Enjoy.

 

Jim

[laudropb]

That looks like a great place to observe from, but it does look very cold.

[glennbech]

Just now, laudropb said:

That looks like a great place to observe from, but it does look very cold.

That's where the fireplace comes in :-) It IS pretty cold to observe in -13c / 9f. Next time I need better socks, otherwise I was clothed for the job. 

[laudropb]

And here was I thinking it was pretty bad a couple of nights ago when it was -6C. With proper clothing and a few hot drinks it still can be very worth it if the sky is clear.

[Paul M]

Wow!

I thought our Cumbrian getaway was good but that's something else.

Initially I thought the trees might be a nuisance but then I saw your wood stove

[glennbech]

12 minutes ago, Paul M said:

Wow!

I thought our Cumbrian getaway was good but that's something else.

Initially I thought the trees might be a nuisance but then I saw your wood stove

Thanks !

I have a decent 360 view from the site. My grandparents that also have a cabin in the area sold off some lumber a few years back and cleared the whole area .-) The only real problem as I see ut is the late summer mosquitos. Autumn and late fall will be absolutely super.   

The Irony is that I have had access to this place for a number of years, but I never bothered to drag my imaging gear up there. There is no electricity and I was not capable of running 100% of my stuff off 12v...

[todd8137]

Ermmm where's the observatory  ? As the title suggest  ? ?

Pat

[glennbech]

Just now, todd8137 said:

Ermmm where's the observatory  ? As the title suggest  ? ?

Pat

Lol, let's call it an open space observatory .-) The title should have been "observation location" maybe. 

I have been granted, by parents to place a building on the site, but that will have to wait for a while. 

[todd8137]

Hahaha its a very big space very envious ,but you can keep the cold and snow  must be a great place to have to observe from 

pat

[Dave In Vermont]

Very nice! It looks as cold as we've had lately: -40F with wind-chill. Socks, scarves, hats, Polar-Tech® gloves.....

Very nice indeed!

Dave

[jetstream]

Great place! I have the same type of obs...nice open space. I love that stove.

[baggywrinkle]

Nice, very very nice....