Came back from a trip to DC and it was the first clear night in a while so we took the scope out. I was also wanted to try the EZ Focus kit as well as see if I needed to collimate the scope (correct the alignment between the secondary mirror and primary mirror). Seeing conditions weren’t great so I didn’t collimate but did get shots of Saturn and M3 (a globular cluster of stars).

During our trip back home, we stopped at the NASA Goddard Space Center and got to see a replica of Hubble’s secondary mirror (shown here) — the secondary mirror is larger then my primary mirror I think.

Quick post — installed the Peterson Engineering EZ Focus Kit.  This kit makes the coarse focuser knob work a lot finer (to the point of not needing to use the microfocuser as much).  The mirror lock stopped turning easily so I spent an hour talking to Pete Peterson and we troubleshot the mirror lock issue.  Seems to be working okay now but waiting for a clear night to really test it.  Also made a Hartmann Mask out of poster board.  This uses diffraction to assist in focusing.  Check out my links for websites on these items.

Really clear night tonight but very windy, so we tried going out nonetheless.  Good news: was able to slew decently to a few star clusters and get some really nice views with the widefield Siebert 36mm eyepiece and also took a horribly underexposed shot of Bode’s galaxy (was fun regardless).  Bad news: Frostbite and the contraption to block the streetlamp fell due to the wind and part of it cracked… back to the drawing board (I should have gone to engineering school or I should have picked up another hobby).

Got the Siebert eyepieces today and I wanted to try the streetlamp blocking idea so I went outside as soon as it was dark and it was a very clear night.  We placed the pole that we built against the streetlamp with the curtain we had cut and it blocked the light pretty decently.  Need to make some adjustments.  I just had enough time to try one of the eyepieces (the 15mm along with the 2x barlow) before some clouds did roll in.  Slewed to Saturn and the image looked pretty good but the seeing was bad so hard to really tell how good the eyepieces really are.  Just have to try again another night…

My wife and I put the finishing touches on an ugly contraption we made out of PVC tubing.  The intent was to devise something that we could slide up the post of the street lamp outside our house and, using dark fabric, block the light from the street lamp — at least from being directed at our house and yard.  After a lot of primer and cement glue, I think this thing might work.  We need to add the fabric for a real test run and I’ll try to add a picture at some point because this thing looks ridiculous.  It may have been cheaper to buy another house in a darker part of the state.

Did some observing last night with some friends who came over.  Almost full moon and a bit hazy but trying to get used to the scope so I’m not fiddling with it when we get some good clear nights.  I updated the AutoStar handcontroller so I had to recalibrate to Polaris and train the drives.  I also got to try out Starry Night Pro (SNP) for the first time and connected it to the scope.  SNP was able to slew the scope pretty well onto even some faint objects.  We did some nebulas and star clusters.  While SNP is not an atlas program per se (more of a planetarium software), it is easy to use and I think that’s what I need now to start.  While we were observing, I got a call from Harry Siebert who was finalizing a few eyepieces I purchased from him.  As always, very kind on the phone and he hoped to mail them today.  Can’t wait to try the new eyepieces on the scope.

Had the first ’star party’ at our house with the new scope.  A few friends came over and we got to check out a few sights.  Lots of ambient light and 1/2 moon so we did some obvious stuff like Orion, Saturn, Mars, Pleiades, etc.  I had trained the drives earlier and that made a big difference in terms of slewing — the scope moves to the target object pretty right on now.  I think I’ll need to retrain once again since when I did it, it was windy, but the slewing works pretty decently already.  To train the drives, I needed a reticle eyepiece but since I didn’t want to spend money on that, I used a piece of hair and taped it to the back of a 3.8mm eyepiece — worked just fine.

I ordered the springy thingy to help mount the scope onto the tripod.  I also ordered Starry Night Pro — while the Star Atlas:PRO had good telescope contol capability, I didn’t find the interface user-friendly enough for my tastes so I’m going to try Starry Night Pro.  Other software that I’ve heard is good is SkyMap.

Lastly, I had mentioned the Scope Buggy earlier as well as the JMI Wheely-bars.  I decided for now not to purchase either since carrying the scope wasn’t as bad as I anticipated.  We move the scope and the tripod separately and the weight is manageable.

Took the scope out tonight briefly since the sky was SO clear (but a bit turbulent). Still getting the hang of things and the wind was picking up again so I tried some easy stuff.

Did very quick pictures of the Orion Nebula and the Moon as well as Saturn – no focusing tools, etc. since it was too cold and windy for my taste.

I think I’ll need to get a wedge (allows for polar alignment) for some more serious pictures but these were fun to start with. The Orion Nebula was a 15 second shot as ISO 1600 while Saturn was a 1/2 second shot at ISO 400.

Just got the new telescope and got to take it for a test drive two nights in a row.  The first night, the calibration was off (and of course, I didn’t read the manual!) in that the scope was consistently about 15 degrees off to the West.  Discovered that the way to troubleshoot the scope in this case was to apply “Calibrate Sensors” so that the telscope knows where Polaris, or the North Star, is.  When I applied that on the second night, the scope worked great!  (I think I’ll need to calibrate again only because it was so windy that the scope was moving a bit in the wind).  The scope was able to align itself pretty decently to Sirius and Dubhe.  So, the first thing my wife and I slewed to was the Moon (just to test the slewing) and then decided that what we wanted to see was Pleiades (M45).  It found M45 pretty right on and with the microfocuser, the image came out very good.  As I’ve read, you don’t really see the nebulosity that you see in pictures (esp. with my suburban surroundings) but all the stars in the eyepiece looked very sharp.  It was pretty cold with the wind so we decided to just test a few quick objects and head back inside.  So, we then went to Mars (could make out some color) and Saturn (was able to make out the Cassini division!).  We played a bit between the Meade 26mm and the 2x barlow and well as some other eyepieces I had from the my first telescope.  With the wind, it was just becoming too difficult to enjoy the show but I was glad to confirm that the scope works and works pretty well.  Can’t wait to calibrate even better and to really enjoy sitting down and doing some observing — and then some astrophotography of course.  No regrets in investing in this scope — a bit heavy but manageable and it seems very promising!