Had just a few hours to play a little bit more with polar alignment and take a test shot.  This is a stack of 5 2-min non-guided shots and 1-dark shot.  A few lessons to try for next time: (1) somehow put a piece of foam between the lens and the scope to keep the lens from shaking, (2) use RAW format, (3) remove front UV lens (I think this is creating inner reflections), and (4) take pictures on a clearer night!  Also might help to stop down the lens one or two stops.

Tonight I decided to invest the time to get some polar alignment done. Got a program (WCS — I’ll post a link later when it’s not 2:00 am) that helps do this. Trick was to NOT use a diagonal and set the settings to inverse. For the Azimuth setting, need to use a star in the South and input the Dec setting (I used Altair). For the Altitude setting setting, need to use a star in the East (I used Alpheratz). It seems to have nailed the polar alignment (at least per the program). I will calibrate again on a less windy night and then do some PEC training.

Took a wide angle shot (300mm on my Canon DSLR) and autoguided with the Meade LPI on the LX200.  Picture is here.  One shot with 5 minute exposure.  Focus is reasonable but tracking could be better.

Check out this website: http://www.cosmotography.com.

The cost of this picture (M13 Hercules Cluster) is as follows (not counting the scope, wedge, or other accessories)…

• One pier from durangoskies (about $800 with shipping)
• One shed from thinking-outside (about $700 from a friend)
• Concrete base ($30 for concrete, $100 to rent an auger)
• Misc. items (nuts, bolts, power cord, etc.) — probably another $300
• Total is about $1,900 — could have downloaded a nicer picture for free — but, oh, what a feeling

We wrapped up the observatory shed today (at least mostly).  Still figuring out how we want to set some things up but I was fairly impressed by the rigidity of the setup (used a pier from durangoskies.com).  The pier is fairly versatile in leveling, etc. so it was relatively easy to set-up.  The plastic shed was a bit of work, mostly because of leveling issues that we may need to still work on.  Once that was set-up, we put the pier on the concrete and then put sand in the pier.  My goal tonight was just to get enough view of polaris to do a rough setup and lock down all the bolts on the pier and we got enough of a break in the clouds to do that.  Just for fun, I took one 30″ shot of Vega which showed the scope was reasonably aligned without any serious drift aligning.  Thanks to my friend for the use of the property!  Looking forward to enhancing the set-up and taking some nicer pictures on a clear (and moonless) night.  Some immediate to-dos are to put some red safety lighting in the shed, get a timer for bulb pictures, remove some hooks that jut out from some shelves in the shed (it hurts to hit them as you walk around the scope), and set-up some chairs, etc.  Anyway, mission accomplished for the day.  Pictures of the setting up can be found in my photo gallery (link above and/or to the right).

We continued with the shed construction today.  Focused mostly on the floor and we removed the template on the concrete base to check how the pier sits.  It was fairly level but will need some adjusting.  We’ve also come up with a good solution to secure the telescope from any would-be robber.  Next steps will be to put up the rest of the shed, secure the pier (and pour sand in the pier to make it more stable), and of course attach the wedge and scope.  Pictures can be found in my photo gallery with the link near the top of this page.

Is that how you even spell ain’t?  Anyway, today was a bit full.  Started at 8:00 by renting an auger (with extension bit) to dig the 12″ by 48″ hole we needed for the telescope pier.  An auger is fun.  An auger is cool.  I need an auger.  We dug the hole in about 20 minutes — would have taken us all day long to dig the same hold by hand and it wouldn’t have been as clean.  Auger’s should be as popular as iPods.  iAuger would be a cool name.  We also poured the concrete base for the pier and my friend Ken set up a nice template for the j-bolts that the pier will mount to.  We tapered the concrete from the 12″ tube to about a 14″ top to give the pier base a little more room.  Finally, we cut a hole through the shed floor which will fit around the concrete base.  Have to admit that I’m excited at the prospect of using the scope and being polar-aligned without hours of setting up and adjustments.  Next steps will be mounting the pier and putting up the shed and then mounting and calibrating the telescope for the first time.  In my gallery (http://www.gallery.roycosta.net), there are shots of the auger digging, concrete pouring (you’ll see the level on top of the wood template), and floor cutting.  Did I mention that I love augers?

The pier arrived at our friends’ house today.  Seemed to be in decent shape… need to file a little bit of metal to get the wedge to work.  We’ll hopefully do some digging Friday or Saturday for the concrete base.  We also got to see the ISS and Shuttle Atlantis fly by at about 9:20… very nice sky conditions.  The shed, etc. should work decently given the view of the Southern sky we’ll have.

We took down the rest of the shed today.  Barely got done and loaded pieces onto a trailer we borrowed before we were hit by a fairly bad storm.  We made it okay to my friend’s house.  Yes, astronomy — what an adventure.