Over the past week or so I’ve been sorting out cables in the observatory and testing cameras. Still only on al alt-az mount without guiding, but a good enough setup to try a few things.
I tried taking some deep sky images last night for the first time in several years. Not an ideal setup for my C9.25 – altaz mount, no guiding, no PEC training, no electronic focuser, unmodded Canon 400d and a bright Moon. Given that, I’m happy with the result of 20x30s exposures on one of my
The shed part is pretty much complete now. Last weekend I made the door, got the rest of the weathersheeting in place, finished the roof, and got the wood preservative on. I also added a 2×3 to strengthen the beam with the castors so that the ends no longer touch the track; I’ve to do
I finally got around to hacking a Philips SPC 900 to enable it to take long exposure images suitable for astrophotography. The modifications are fairly well known. The approach I took is a mixture of the http://www.boltonastro.org.uk/Members%5FArea/Projects/spc880conversion.pdf from Bolton Astronomical Society and http://www.yesyes.info/index.php/diy/philips-spc900-webcam-lx-and-ampoff-mod/ . The circuit between both approaches is roughly the same, I followed