Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on Jul 30, 2013 15:49:31 GMT -6
Four hours with the C11 on a cool Summer's morning
30 July 2013
30 July 2013
I set-up the C11 on the CG-5 at around midnight on a semi-clear early Tuesday morning. This was to be a tweaking session....nudging the secondary, aligning the finder scopes/laser etc... Transporting the C11 to and from Star Parties bangs things around and it needed a tweak. The "Bob's Knobs" makes this process a snap. Searching for the perfect concentric circle on my out of focus star - this time being Caph in Cassiopea...
Kinda difficult with just one person, but with a good stretch of my mighty forearm, I can manipulate the knobs with my finger while still viewing thru the eyepiece. Thin side of the airy disk circle mean loosening, fat side tightening. And in about 1/2 an hour of slight tweakings...I attainted near 100% collimation - with pin point stars on both sides of the focus travel.
Cool...
I suffer from a lack of decent sky angles at Joe's estates, trees and house block a lot, save for north and a few degrees on either side...but what really hinders the observations - is the intense alley lights...
...which blaze without relent.
I have been meaning to bring out the Astrobrella to block out the light right above me and decided to try it out...worked well and will become a regular part of the alley observations.
Cassie was up over my neighbors trees and tried some test shots on the new calibration...
The Double Cluster and the E.T. were wonderfully pin-points, but my alignment was not...
I was also using the Canon software hack (CkDSK), enabling manipulations of the S3 beyond the set parameters. I took some 60 second shots, but with the error in tracking, I was getting some trails, but I did take several 30 sec shots of the above targets and will stack them inpost production - (been really meaning to try out those programs!)
To the east, it was a bit hazy, but the 3/4 Moon was starting to slide high and I spent the rest of the session on her...
The tweaking in collimation brought out sharp details on the lunar surface that the camera is just not capturing. I popped in the Binoviewers...and it was an experience in stereo vision that always amazing me...
Under my man-made shade, I spent the next couple of hours exploring our nearest neighbor...
I was having a ball, stacking barlows on the binoviewer...
In these longer solo sessions, I enjoy the shadows of the mountain ridges that surround craters, casting their presence on the crater floor...and noticing them creep along - changing position throughout the observation. Peaks of mountain tops, reaching from beyond the terminator, disappeared by the time I started to wrap up.
And before I knew it...it was 4am, Robins were about, private trash collector trucks on their routes and the sky brightening.
For this session, I experimented with this loose eyepiece from a binocular that I had layin' around. Looks like a 10x and when placed on top of an eyepiece, magnified the image more and sharply. I think I will adapt it to the Chicago Astronomer arsenal....
Another peaceful and solitudinal early morning with the Moon and pals...
More times like this should be had....
