Star tripping

   I thought I might take a little time to update this thing. It seems I always have something else to do lately and this just doesn't get high enough up on the priority list to get done. No joke..... I'm actually waiting for the grass to dry right now. I got the larger part of the yard (A bit over an acre) mown yesterday. Then again I have a 23 HP Hustler ZTR for that task and it just doesn't care if the grass is wet or dry..... needs a short 1" trim or has to have a foot or more brought under control. It just whacks the stuff down to size and doesn't care. 

   The three patches up front I do with an EGo electric mower...... mostly because I like the look better when I use that one. With the heart problems, I opted for the self-propelled model and it makes that task a lot easier. Anyway..... as soon as the grass has dried off enough that little thing comes out and I'm ready for the weekend with everything mown and edged. 

   Now, Star Tripping. Last month (Mars opposition) I decided that since I had wanted a nice telescope for over fifty years I owed it to myself to get one.  I figured if I could manage to afford that darn riding mower so I could work then I could also afford a darn telescope so I could have some fun too. So, as is my habit, I started shopping around. [actually, I'd been shopping for all those fifty plus years but did not then have a desire to buy] for the best combination of size, features and price. I wanted bang for the bucks I was about to spend. 

   I finally settled on Celestron due, in part, to their reputation and universal praise of their optics. I could not justify their biggest system since it has an entry price of just under $10,000 for the super high-end 14" Edge HD version. Optical tube and CGX-L GoTo mount ($3000 just for the mount). Likewise, their smaller 11" SCT (Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope) in the Edge HD version on the same mount was above my budget. Their Advanced VX mount shaved $2200 off the cost though so I put that on my buy list for features. Selecting the standard 11" SCT saved another couple thousand so now I had the two main components identified. 

   With those two top of the list, it was just a matter of fleshing out the rest of the system. Several weeks of searching landed me at the Celestron Factory Outlet store. There I found the Advanced VX mount coupled to the standard 11" SCT with two additional counterweights, computerized hand controller, 9X50 spotter scope, Tripod, SkySync GPS unit, Eyepiece and filter kit in an aluminum carrying case, all for around $3000....... with FREE shipping!!! (normally an additional $150 to $180) Told sweetie what I planned on doing, got her blessing, and pulled the trigger. 

   It seemed that that Mars Opposition thing caused a LOT of interest in large telescopes. The package I wanted was on a National back-order. Oh well. I'd waited fifty years so what's another couple of weeks? Towards the end of September, it arrived in several large boxes. The weather had been pretty nice so far so get that thing put together and balanced then get out there and look at stuff!!! By the time I had everything assembled, balanced, and the rough settings completed....... I hear thunder. Really???? Sure enough, it's now 100% overcast and starting to rain. What timing!!!  No change in that weather for the next 9 days. Oh well. We'd been in a prolonged drought and really needed the rain so no real bitching. I moved the unit to another room and waited. 

   Now then..... the beast. Ready to observe the telescope package weighs in at just a bit over 100 pounds! No. You don't just get an urge to take a quick peek at something. Moving this thing requires taking it partially apart and making several trips to where you want to set it up. Once all the parts are there it has to be put back together, polar aligned and also aligned to several bright stars so the unit knows where it's located well enough to find anything above the horizon. With the legs in the lowest (most stable) position, it takes about 9 square feet of real estate. That is necessary because the SCT moves in some rather odd ways and if you don't give it the room it will hit things. My first set up probably took the better part of an hour to complete. 

   Last night, the 27th of September 2018, was officially "First Light" for the unit. (a term from long ago meaning the first time a telescope is officially put to use to observe)  Of course, being my first time, everything did not go smoothly but, overall, it was an okay experience. Earlier in the day I had selected a spot on the west lawn and put down three concrete pavers for the tripod legs to set on. These had been set in the ground so I could mow over them, and all three had been set so as to all be at the same level as each other. They had also all been oriented, as a group,  towards the north so the Telescope would be placed in roughly the proper polar alignment simply by having the legs near the center of their respective paver. I think when I checked last night the little computer only showed being off by 2 degrees so not bad at all. 

   All that work confirmed the need for a permanent location for the telescope. I have several plans from a place called "Sky Shed" already so, eventually, I'll be building a place where it can live full time. The majority of those sheds have roll-off roofs so the telescope can see the sky when in use and be protected from the weather otherwise.  

They also include plans for building a pier for the telescope to rest upon. That makes for a MUCH more stable mount and eliminates the necessity for doing all those alignment steps each time I want to observe since the telescope will never move from session to session. These all have a large concrete element underground with a steel pier bolted to that. The floor of the shed is build so as not to contact either the concrete part or the steel part which eliminates any possible transfer of motion from the floor to the mount. If the telescope shakes..... it will be because of an earthquake. 

   On the first observing session I did get to see Mars, but probably needed some sort of filter on the eyepiece to reduce the glare. It basically looked like Venus last night. Just a VERY bright ball of light with no detail. Jupiter was much the same. So bright that all the detail washed out. I could easily see four of the larger moons, though, so that was exciting. Saturn was washed out too but still was spectacular to see, so I guess I'll try a moon filter to cut the light some. I have some other filters but I think those work best with a camera but I could try them to see if they help visual observing too. 

   I had issues keeping the planets centered in the eyepiece last night and had to keep moving the scope with the hand controller. I found out later that I had to manually go into the telescope guiding program and select a guiding speed for planetary observing. I assumed that, since the telescope "knew" it was pointing at a planet, it should automatically change the tracking rate. Not the case it seems. I know that now, however. I also saw the Andromeda Galaxy. Somewhat disappointing through an eyepiece but may photograph well later. Then again...... it's 2.5 MILLION light years away. One light year is 5,878,625,373,183.6  miles so you do the math...... it's a LONG way away!!!  Okay. I'll save you the trouble. its 14,872,922,194,154.51 trillion miles. At even a penny a mile you're worry free for life. 

      Toward the end of the session, the hand controller did not want to work consistently. It might slew the scope left to right but refuse to move it up and down. Other times it was just the opposite. other times it would suddenly skip to the highest speed even though I hadn't asked for that and was trying to get an object centered in the eyepiece, which is difficult enough because the image in the eyepiece is upside down and reversed. Also the temperature was dropping and dew was starting to form on the optical tube. It took about 20 minutes to break it down and store it in the big empty trailer out back. 

   I got a glass solar filter the other day. A replacement for another Celestron shipped which arrived broken. Can't figure out why that happened. I mean you take a giant piece of glass and put it in a box like a pizza without ANY padding or packing and ship it across the nation and actually expect it to arrive safely? I was amazed when the replacement got here in one piece. Getting ready for the next total eclipse in 2024. Totality will pass through a lot of Texas but I have identified a place dead center of that path in Oklahoma. Until then I can practice doing solar imaging and take no chances of not getting it right at the eclipse. 

   For the nighttime viewing I'm looking at a thing called "StarSense" that replaces the finder scope on the big telescope. It's a little camera that automatically takes several images of the night sky, selects certain stars, then uses them to automatically triangulate the exact position of the telescope and eliminate the need to try to get it aligned manually. It's said to reduce the alignment time to about 3 minutes. I know I spent at least 30 last night trying to get it aligned. 

   Then again I wasn't aware of a few things which might have shortened that a bit. Little stuff like..... even though you just polar aligned using the north star, Polaris, you still have to go into the settings menu and tell the telescope it's in the northern hemisphere. I thought that would be automatic because it's SO obvious.... but it's not. Likewise, I had trouble keeping the planets centered....... well..... even though I told the telescope to go to Jupiter I also have to go into the setting menu and tell the telescope to track at the planetary rate rather than the sidereal rate used for stars. Again so obvious that it should happen automatically but doesn't. 

   Since this is a new adventure I may create another blog just for this hobby. Might even keep the title of this post as the name of that blog. I'll post my viewing adventures there and document the problems I encounter along the way. I'll also post the solutions I've found so others can spare themselves the experimentation and frustration. Likewise, that would be a good venue to document the construction of the sky shed and detail how that project comes off. This will certainly have a learning curve involved so as I master things I'll try to share that in clear, concise terms. 

   The plus side is that it's a wonderful hobby and keeping the mind active in the later years is crucial. I guess I could think of it as an Alzheimer's preventative. I think once I get into imaging it will be a lot more interesting because the camera can capture details that the human eye misses. There are image processing programs out there that will automatically take just the top 20 or 30% of all the photos you have taken then stack them together, correct for alignment drift caused by time, then generate one final image that can be corrected for color, contrast and all those other things. It should be a lot of fun and the first step is behind me already!