Jupiter Afocal 10.29.11

Seeing was not very good, and still struggling with focus...
10mm Plossl with 2x barlow screwed to EP, 3000 of 4200 frames

1st Light with the Obs!

Still have to make a door, put in some screws and trim a few deck boards but had a 1st light, spent most of the time drift aligning, but took a shot of myself observing Andromeda, it's almost Nirvana!

Afocal Europa Transit with Shadow 10.25.11 2:30am

Jupiter 10.21.11

And after setting up the gear fo the 1st time on the new build, I actually got a decent afocal shot of Jupiter before calling it a night.

1st light on observatory

Got the slot cut in the shed, lounge moved up to the astroshed, cut a few trim pieces off the deck boards, and set up the scope so it can stay out there.

So close...

Got the rest of the deck boards in place, finished the floor in the shed, and got the plastic shed up on the deck, just need to patch a hole on one side, put in a door, trim all the edges on the deck, cut a slit in the plastic shed and good to go!

Shed is here

Well it rained all day yesterday, so we returned a few of the board that were sub-standard, and got the decking to complete the pad, and picked up the shed. Cold, windy and drizzle today so no or very little progress today. The shed is on the trailer waiting to move up to it's new home!

Almost there...

Got most of the decking on, still have a couple hundred screws to finish up, but we ran out of decking boards...we still need 3...grrr
Also got half the floor in the astroshed, supposed to rain tomorrow so at least got this far, been a long 3 days!

Decking started

Deck moving along

We got all the posts in and set in concrete and actually started puting in the joists. Whoohoo!

Day one of the deck build

We got the layout of the deck done, marked and dug all the post holes, even starting framing!

Plans continue!

We found a plastic shed on clearance at Sears and bought it today after work. So now we have all teh lumber for the deck and the plastic shed to store the scope, it's one of the smaller ones and I plan to cut a slit in the floor and roll it off and on the pier. Basically the shed slides off the pier and out of the way, I have seen several done this way around the web and for the price, it's the way to go for me.
 Off for the next 2 weeks and the deck building starts tommorow!

The Deck Begins!

My lovely CFO has insisted the deck be large enough to support friends and whatnot while at the scope, so... we financed the materials to build a 24x16x16' deck around my pier and we aslo bought flooring for the "goat shed" which will be remodled into an "astro" shed.

 So now all that lumber is sitting out there, ready to go. (Ha ha, when pulling into the back yard, the entire load of lumber slid off the back of the trailer, I had to load it back on the trailer in the dark)

Wooden Pier Plate

I got everything bolted together and mounted on the pier temporarily, with a rough polar alignment I still have slight trailing at 30seconds. Also realized my visual back will no longer thread all the way on my focal reducer....grrrr. But I was able to get some decent shots of the moon and tried for Jupiter again.
The wood pier plate does have more vibration than the tripod, but hopefully that will get better when the pier is cut down shorter and some bracing goes around the bottom plate.

Epic Fail

I like to do things off the cuff, learn by doing, after all, I replaced the radiator on a 93 Buick with no past experience, you know, figure it out as you go. Sometimes that's the hard way, but what the hell.
 I went to Ace and got the bolts, washers and nuts to complete the pier plate, got everything bolted together and mounted to the pier, took the scope out and put it on the wedge...uh oh...
 The scope is about 6 feet off the ground. Not good.
I did not realize the 4 foot pier, plus pier plate, plus wedge would add that much height. I plan to build a deck around the pier, but at this point I think I will have to cut the pier down or make the deck like 4 feet off the ground.

Getting started

Well I figured it's about time I started writing all this down so I can keep track of my progress. I started the Messier list and it has been about 18 months since I started looking at the skies. I have about half of the Messier list, 2 comets and a handful of NGC's under my belt.
 From my house I can see the Milky Way on the best nights, but it's pretty light polluted.
 Meade 2120 LX3 10" SCT
 Coulter 10.1" Dobsonian Reflector
 7x42 Binocular
This is my latest atempt at Astrophotography, M8, the Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius.