The Suffolk Sky

The FeatherTouch Microfocuser Finally Made It!

I ordered the Starizona FeatherTouch Microfocuser a little over a month ago and it was on back order. Dean over at Starizona has been great, replying to my weekly emails letting me know the status. Finally last week it shipped and I received it last night.

The FeatherTouch has two focusing knobs. One for coarse focusing and one for fine focusing. The fine focusing knob is 1/10th speed. The focuser seems to be built solid and the focusing knobs move smoothly.

Installation of the microfocuser was pretty straight forward and the instructions provided walk you through every step of the way. Took about 15 minutes for installation.

Starizona Microfocuser - Coarse and Fine (10:1) Focusing

Starizona was a great company to deal with and I will be looking to them for some other accessories in the future. Stop by and check them out.

I did not get a chance to try out the new focuser last night, the clouds moved in as the Sun went down. I had also been out late the two nights before and I really needed to get some rest.

Hoping for clear skies this weekend.

Just ordered a FeatherTouch MicroFocuser

Just ordered a FeatherTouch MicroFocuser from Starizona.com for my C8.  I’ve been checking them out for awhile and finally got the money together for it.  I read some good reviews about them in the CloudyNights.com Forums and I am looking forward to trying it out. I’ll do a review here once I get it.

Anyone out there have any experience with one, would like to hear about your experiences with it and what you think?

Trying out some prime focus photos

Tonight is the first night I have been able to try out the T-Connector and T-Ring that attaches my Nikon D60 to my Celestron C8 SCT scope.

It was a nice night early on, cold and fairly clear to the East and directly over head. By about 9:00 PM there were some clouds moving in from the Southwest. A thin layer of clouds covered the sky by 10:00 PM so I called it a night a little earlier than I wanted.

Orion Nebula | 01/03/09 19:10 EST - 6x30secs - Prime Focus

Moon 01/03/2009 - 1/200 exposure - Prime Focus

I need to practice focusing some as most of the shots I took were just a hair out of focus. I also took a few shots of the Andromeda Galaxy but they were just too out of focus.

When I set the scope up early in the afternoon, Venus was visible in full light. I wanted to try out the T-Connector and camera in the daylight to minimize the fumbling at night. I took a quick shot of Venus and here it is:

Venus - Early Afternoon - 01032009 - 1/200 exposure - Prime Focus

Kind of cool being able to see this planet well before dark. Looks like a miniature half Moon.

Celestron Piggyback Mount

Just got my Celestron Piggyback Camera mount yesterday evening!  Can’t wait to try it out, but it looks like there will be no clear skys this weekend.

Celestron Piggyback Mount for 8", 9.25", 11" and 14" SCT

I have been doing a lot of reading around the ‘net on piggyback astrophotography and I am looking forward to practicing. I have taken some shorter exposures from just the tripod that have turned out OK, but I am guessing with a little practice and a properly aligned scope they will be spectacular.

The nights this week have been cold and clear but the clouds are suppose to roll in today and hang with us for most of the weekend.

Home Built Solar Filter for My Celestron 8″ SCT

I finished building my DIY Solar Filter.

Here are the materials I used to construct my filter.

• Badeer AstroSolar Safety Film – about $35 w/ shipping
• 1 Sheet of Black Poster Board – $0.79 @ Walmart
• 1 Sheet of Black Foam Board – $3.79 @ Walmart
• Black Electrical Tape
• Elmer’s Glue

The total cost of the filter project was less than $45.

DIY Solar Filter

I used the directions found here and also here.  The AstroSolar film also came with similar directions.

DIY Solar Filter on the Celestron C8

The Hartman mask template generator gives you a good template to use for where to cut the hole.

Works just as well as the one I bought for my small scope.  I still have some of the Baader AstroSolar Film left so I am going to make a small solar filter for the finder scope.

Baader AstroSolar Safety Film

My order of Baader AstroSolar Safety Film arrived via UPS yesterday.  I now have all the materials I am going to need to build my solar filter for my C8 scope.

Solar filters for the 8″ scope start at about $110, I figure I should be able to put one together for a little more than the cost of the film (about $35 which includes the shipping).  With the film being 7.9″ x 11.8″ I should have more than enough to make more than one if necessary.

I will post instructions and pictures of my DIY solar filter once I have it finished.

The sun has been pretty active with several sunspots that are part of the new Solar Cycle 24.  To keep up to date on what is going on up there on our star check out SpaceWeather.com or NASA’s Solar and Heliosheric Observatory page.

Polar Alignment References

Just a couple of articles on polar alignment of an equatorial mounted scope for future reference:

From Celestron’s Knowledge Base:

Rough Polar Alignment

Accurate Polar Alignment

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From Sky and Telescope – DIY Accurate Polar Alignment
Sky and Telescope also has a bunch of other great Astronomy DIY articles.

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Observatorio ARVAL – Polar Alignment
This is an article on aligning a Meade LXD55/75 scope, but the general procedure holds true for all equatorial mounted scopes.

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There are many more if you do a quick search on Google, but these are a few that I read and found helpful.  Celestron’s KB is actually a great place to find a lot of good information, not just about Celestron scopes, but about amateur astronomy in general.

If anyone else knows of any good resources for how to polar align your scope, feel free to add them to the comments.

New Filters

The UPS man dropped off my two new filters yesterday afternoon.

Celestron 93623 Narrowband Oxygen III 1.25 Filter

and

Celestron UV / IR Cutoff Filter – 1.25″

Can’t wait to try them out this weekend. Looks like the weather is going to be great!

Getting to know the NexImage

I know it has been awhile since I have posted or even since I have been out to do any observing at all. Between weather, work, family, and life in general I have just not had the time to pull the scope out and do any real observing. Besides going out a time or two with the binoculars I have not even really looked up in the last month.

Lastnight the weather was good and the sky was clear. I set the C8 scope up in the early afternoon and decided that the focus of this session would be getting myself familiar with the Celestron NexImage Solar System Imager.

I spent a couple of hours in the early evening viewing Venus and Jupiter. I also spent a lot of time practicing focusing on the planets while the camera was attached and trying different configuration options in AMCap, which is the capture software that comes with the Celestron NexImage Solar System Imager, to figure out what works best. I did not get any images lastnight and I was not really trying to, but I did learn alot about the camera and the settings.

I also found a great quick set up guide with some basic instructions on configuring AMCap to use with the NexImage and I have stored it locally here Quick Guide to Capturing Images with the Celestron NexImage Solar System Imager. The originial document can be found at http://www.nexstarsite.com/download/ImagingWithNexImage.pdf

If the weather is nice next weekend I hope to get out an actually get a few images of Jupiter.  Then I will be able to have a go at processing them.