I had a few hours before moonrise, and wanted another stab at NGC 4435 & 4438. I thought I had good focus, and was getting about 5.5 FWHM on the focus run, but it looks like the focus drifted quite a bit during the run. NGC 4435 and 4438; 5 x 300 with 12″ LX-200 … Read more
For amateur astronomers, a “sucker hole” is when it looks clear enough to set up, but as soon as you’re ready to get started, it clouds up again, and you feel like a dope. We’ve been waiting for Spring to get started for what seems like forever. I first heard spring peepers March 9, and … Read more
After I got a glimpse of Pan-STARRS, it looked like it would be clear enough to open the Hut. I wanted to run some more v-curves (calibration runs) in FocusMax, but apparently I had the steps set too small and the center focus position set too far off. So the run took forever and didn’t … Read more
It’s been a fairly blue day and I had hopes of glimpsing Pan-STARRS. I went out after sunset, and between the crescent moon and the sun is a beautifully textured but mostly opaque mass of cirrus. Quite a lovely evening but not a glimpse of the comet through the binoculars. I was helped by Callie … Read more
Periodically there’s a thread on the AstroPhysics forum on why the scope isn’t exactly on target, and sometimes a lot off target, after start up and un-parking. There are lots of mechanical reasons for this: if the optics of the scope are not parallel to the scope’s axis (“unorthogonality”); flexure of the scope in relation … Read more
On a rare clear night, I wanted to improve the auto-focus routine, and spent some time getting it pretty close, Then I picked a promising object somewhat at random, which turned out surprisingly well. NGC 2775 has a very tight spiral structure with very fine detail that reminds me of M63, the “sunflower” galaxy, but … Read more