thomlocke sculpture project

Testing out the new pier tonight. I don’t think it’s going to be  clear enough for imaging, but we’ll see. I want to get polar alignment down.

Well, we had a good run of clear night skies last week, and then it rained for three or four days. I set everything back up this afternoon, going with the full RGB + Ha filter set tonight. It’s all about taking very long exposure images with a telescope, and by long exposure I’m talking the shutter open 5 minutes for each frame, taking a hundred of these through the night while holding the sensor temperature to nice cool -10C the whole time. Every image I captured over the last five clear nights has been through this 8 inch Newtonian scope (8 inch primary mirror (203mm) inside the tube where the gold foil cap covers the end, the secondary mirror is where the camera connects to the focuser, toward the top of the scope). And I ran every night’s imaging session with the ZWO ASIAir controller.

The astro gear is ready to go (this is the advantage of being able to leave everything setup for weeks at a time). Now I'm just waiting for the clouds to move.

One of my astro imaging setups, probably the most portable one, William Optics SpaceCat51 and the ZWO AM5 EQ mount.

I finally installed and running the autofocus on the CarbonStar 150 (600mm, f/4) newtonian. I've had the scope and EAF for a while, and wanted to be ready for the next clear night. We have weather approaching, so probably won't be able to get out with this setup before next week.

A beautiful winter day out there with four or five inches of snow overnight. We just cleared the driveway. I hope everyone has some time to relax between now and the new year! A quick doodle in ink--pretty much what it looks like out front with our Blue Spruce covered in snow.

Astro setup tonight. We still have some snow, even with the warmest day we've had in a while, high of 74F/23C. I don't know if the weather's going to hold, but I might start on M51, Whirlpool Galaxy with the Apertura CarbonStar 150 (150mm diameter primary mirror, 600mm focal length at f/4) and the ZWO ASI715MC, which isn't the best camera for this, but we'll see how it does. I also have the ZWO ASI220MM off-axis and the 2inch Antlia UV/IR cut filter in the drawer.

world class optics!!!... great luck to you,.!!! its getting me intersted in returning to the hobby, again.......

Whirlpool Galaxy from my backyard using a $229 color camera. I captured 133 120-second subs of M51 last night with the ZWO ASI715MC camera and the Apertura CarbonStar 150 (600mm focal length). I stacked 115 good subs, no calibration frames, and the result is pretty good. #astrophotography #galaxy #M51 #whirlpoolgalaxy #ZWO

New Astro Video up on Youtube! Let's talk about capturing galaxies millions of lightyears away and have fun doing it! #Astrophotography #astronomy #galaxy #whirlpoolgalaxy https://www.youtube.com/@ChrisHoward/videos

I'm going after M106 (NGC 4258), an "intermediate spiral galaxy" tonight. I'm 15 sub-exposures into the night's imaging run, and looking pretty good so far. #astrophotography #astronomy #galaxy

“ Moon Squad ” // © Star Walk 2