I got the mak out for the first time in a long time last night. It was a beautiful day and very pleasant evening - pretty ideal for observing. I was tired, though, so i wasn't sure how long i'd last. I was hoping to have a go at comet 73P SW as well as a lunar sketch.
After getting the stuff outside and set up at about 9:30, with a rough polar align, I realized right away that tracking wasn't working right. It appears that my RA motor is running backward, and I've got no idea why. I tried all kinds of things, then gave up and came inside and played with it more there until 11:30.
Playing with it inside, I'm somewhat what convinced that something is faulty. No matter what setting - north or south - or which button i push on the controller, the motor runs CCW when facing the gear. If I set it to 8x, it goes 8x CCW. If I set it to 2x, it goes 2x. But both buttons turn the motor CCW no matter the N/S switch position.
I have a couple other things to test, but it might be a call to Orion tomorrow to see what they have to say. At least the drives are under warranty still.
| Equipment |
|
Comments [0]
Keith asks about the swing set/scope tower. Above is a current pic almost 9 years later. When my kids (kid at the time with another on the way) were little, we had made a plan for a backyard play set, similar to those Rainbow Systems sets that were super popular.
After some investigation of those sets, I realized that they were too expensive and that I could probably build one myself. In addition, the "tower" was going to be planted right in the only dark corner of the yard. So I figured that I could engineer something that might work for the kids as well as myself for observing.
Now I knew then that planting a scope on a wood deck was a horrible way to observe. Any vibration is sent right to the image. However, I wasn't too concerned because at the time my primary interest was sweeping for comets. This activity didn't require rock steady viewing since the scope was in motion most of the time anyway.
So i took a step ladder out to the back yard and walked up it until the street light at the end of the alley was hitting me in the eyes over the neighbor's garage. I settled on a "floor" height for the platform a few inches below that.
I also measures the "swing" of the scope (and 8" f/6 dob) and settled on 5' square - slightly larger than your typical backyard playset. Railing height was based on my ability to level the tube when on it's milk crate pedestal.
From there, I added the "kid stuff" - the swing header, the sandbox, slide, ladder, etc. Under it all is 4" of pea gravel - much better on a fall than wood chips and they don't rot.
All in all I spent a lot of sessions up there, mostly in 97 and 98, but by the end of 98 I was driving out of town for nearly all of my sessions. It was somewhat difficult working up there; stuff would roll off, or drop through the cracks in the deck boards; it was cramped for space (no option of sitting); it was a chore heaving everything up there. But it did provide for a much wider view of the sky.
I'm not sure how much I'll use it any more. With my current interest in lunar sketches, I need the scope to be on a solid foundation and not jiggle at all. I think I'm more likely to be on the ground with the screen up to block the lights and a chair to observe.
It still works great as a pirate ship, though...
| Equipment |
|
it's been a pretty tough few days. High stress, no observing, busier than hell. I hate that.
Today I was supposed to make a simple upgrade to the network that runs this site. Once machine has a hard drive that is showing signs that it might fail. Que the HAL voice: "I'm sorry tim, my analysis shows it's going to fail within 72 hours..." Anyway... Today I was going to do a routine swap of the drive early this morning (one of the slowest times of the week). It's turned into a six hour pain in the ass.
Every evening this week was also occupied with something or other. Work guests from Germany. Dinner plans. Class. I just feel like I've been going pretty close to full blast.
Adding to the insult was that the moon was in a good phase for evening viewing from my yard, and it has been very warm for this time of year - mid 60s on friday.
I'm not completely dissappointed about missing observing, because the other things were enjoyable as well, but I just don't like going so hard all the time. A little balance would be nice.
After working on the computers this morning, I attempted to nap in the afternoon - but i was too caffinated for it to really work. Coffee all morning makes it hard to get to sleep.
So here I am in a state of semi-tired, semi-hung over and generally unmotivated. And it's raining now.
So it's just a gray day.
On a bright note, however, I did find a new home for the pup scope. It will be heading to Kentucky soon. I will miss it.
When I bought it, I felt like I had gained access to a special club of observers / telescope owners - those that owner the "high end" refractors, even if it was at the far lower end of the high end. But it had the TeleVue name, and everyone knew what that meant (and still means).
At first i couldn't believe how "solid" it felt - tight, well machined. It felt like it was made by someone who really cared about building an "instrument".
we've had some good views together, and I hope it serves the new owner equally as well.
So that, really is one little stress removed.
Moving on the the rest.
| Equipment |
|
I was at the farm this past weekend, and I was able to spend some time working on the 'observing circle.'
I can't really call it an observatory, because it, in and of itself, doesn't do anything (except mark the cardinal directions, but more about that in a bit). And I don't have a permanent structure there for a scope. So it's not really an observatory, it's more my observing "space", or my "spot".
Regardless of what it might be termed, it is the place I like to go to look at the sky (both day and night) and it is a place that is kind of mine to do with as I please.
Last time I was working on making it a proper circle, with my pad in the middle. This time I actually had three things in mind. Goal 1 was to find proper north. Sure I could use the GPS or a compass, but I wanted to do it with simpler means and Polaris. Secondly, I wanted to add some stones to the perimeter of the circle. And finally, I wanted some more solid places for the tripod points.
So, like a doofus, I started with the tripod points. I found some old fire bricks and easily sunk them into the sod, making nice, hard "feet" for the tripod of the new scope.
Then I enlisted the help of my daughter and her friend (along for the weekend), and together we found a bunch of softball-sized rocks, loaded the garden cart full, and pushed them over to the circle.
as the kids and I places the stones around the edge of the mowed area, I singled out one especially white rock to be my "north" marker, at least for now. I actually have a large, and I mean Large, stone picked out for my north marker, but need to figure out a good way to move it. Anyway, for now the white rock would due.
After dinner, I went out to check out the sky. I had brought the scope along because the kids have been asking to look at mars, but I wasn't too optimistic about our chances. This was november partly cloudy, not september partly cloudy. In september, when I'd partly cloudy that generally means that after dark the clouds dissipate and it becomes solid clear. In November, clouds - the high wispy kind that create the "milky blue" sky in the day time hang around all night, too.
And that's what we had. Lots of haze, only the brightest stars coming through. Mars was fuzzy without any optical aid.
Out at the circle, I could just barely see polaris. It was enough, though, to place the stone. I could tell right away that the tiles I used for the pad and the tripod points were all way off, so why I wasted my time doing that without truly knowing which way north was was kind of a shortsighted move.
So probably in the spring I'm going to dig up the tiles and the tripod points and reset them all with a better orientation. I think, too, that I'm going to gradually replace all the stones with bigger ones. Melon sized would fit the scale better.
But the effect IS cool. It's one thing to have the mowed space. But to be inside a circle of stones, at the center with the directions marked and stuff is really kind of neat.
I think the effect will even be more pronounced when the stones are even more purposeful, such as having my large north marker.
I also want some solstice stones or piles at a minimum. Other ideas I've had are some kind of sundial, as well as perhaps an annalema. The trouble with these is the prairie grass. It's so high as to hide the stones.
Maybe we need a goat...
| Equipment |
|
This is a little longer report of my first session with the Orion 127 Mak-Cas.
Before I went to bed, the forecast, the clear sky clock, and what I was seeing outside were all conflicting. My gut was telling me that as it got colder it would clear off. So I put the OTA on the porch to cool down, and went to bed. The alarm went off at about 1:15 after a couple hour nap, and as always, getting out from under the covers was the most difficult part of the session. Once I got my body vertical, shook the cobwebs out and confirmed that it's clear (thanks to the bright moonlight on my daughter's bedroom floor), the sleepies disappeared pretty fast.
I didn't have too high of expectations for this session, other than to just see how to set it up and kind of test everything in the dark. It's been a few weeks since I've been out, so I was a little disorganized about the whole thing. I wasn't sure if I would try, but I set up a sketch board anyway.
Part of the disorganization was having to get all my cold weather gear out - I knew after I put the tripod out back that I was going to need it - it was quite chilly. So that meant a bit of digging in closets and stuff.
The first frustration I had with the polar setup was aligning the polar scope. It has this little map inside it, showing the position of the big dipper, etc relative to the pole. The problem was that when I went to orient the map to the sky, I kept unscrewing the whole polar scope from the mount. I need to figure out how to turn the map image without loosening the whole thing. So I fudged on the polar alignment, assuming it would be good enough for visual work.
The second issue was the damn light in the alley. It was hard to find a spot where I had some protection, and even that wasn't very good. I think I'm going to make a light screen based on a simple concept of using insulation panels as a wall.
After powering up the drive (using a 6v dc transformer and power from the garage - i hate batteries), I dialed in the moon, and went looking at terminator features. I came across Posidonius, and though it was pretty interesting. The cool thing in my mind was that it looked just like a cat was sitting on the edge. If I can make the sketch work, you'll see what I mean.
At this point, I was thinking that this was going to be a difficult sketch. I have had the idea that it would be a good thing to pop off a digital photo of the feature, even a poor one, just for reference when drawing. Even a poor photo will have some memory jog while working the final drawing.
So I popped off about 15 frames with the DC. It wasn't working, the exposures were all wrong, and I felt like I was wasting time, so I gave up. I wanted to make it like I was seeing in the eyepiece, so I was trying to shoot through the 10mm. I should have gone to the 20mm TeleVue and used that, the additional eye relief would have helped a lot. A note for next time I try this. In looking at the pics, they very roughly worked. I've saved them, just in case, for use with the sketch. So I think the plan has merit.
Then I actually worked on the sketch itself. That, as I suspected, is very tricky. Plus I had gloves on. As I was sketching, the errors in polar alignment were apparent and I did, fairly often, have to re-center the crater. I spent about 40 minutes on the sketch, probably the longest I've ever spent observing a single feature in detail on the moon. And I still consider the sketch to be very rough.
I probably should have picked a less complicated feature to get started on, but I liked the cat image. The other issue is that it's mirrored. I'll probably draw it the way I saw it, but then flip it with photoshop. I like the sketches to reflect reality.
I brought a stool out, which worked good for sitting at the scope. I think most chairs would have been too low. However, it was too high when looking at Mars (it's 24" high). The Denver chair should give me all the range I need.
When somewhat satisfied with the sketch, and getting cold, I decided to see how far off the finder was by turning the scope on Mars. My first impression is the 8x40 finder is really nice, much better than any finder scope I've had before (which were the lame Department Store variety). I can actually see stars through this one.
It took a bit of flying around, but I found it. The finder was not too far off, actually, but far enough. With the 20mm TV eyepiece and the barlow (which is a 2x Celestron Ultima), I could quite easily pick out some surface features. I didn't try a sketch.
For the final act of the night, I couldn't resist trying the scope out on M42. It was right there, nice and high in the sky, just asking. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I could see, given only 5" aperture and a 3/4 moon right in the same part of the sky. The trapezium stars were very sharp, and I could pick out long areas of nebulosity.
It was near 3 by this time, and I was cold and exhausted. And this being the first time tearing it down outside in the dark, I didn't want to make stupid mistakes. So I took my time, and it still only took about 20 minutes. Not as simple as the dob, but not all that much harder, either.
So, the final results. 1. Need to get everything aligned, like the finder and polar scope. 2. Take a little extra time with polar alignment. 3. Get a light shield. 4 Work on finding/building some kind of adjustable chair. 5. Bring out a real eraser.
| Equipment |
|
