Astronomy and CCD'S or ‘A Brief History of
Time’
I became aware in October, 1957 at the ripe old age of 15. Always a
sci-fi flick fan.... this was real..
Sputnik....Muttnik.....Vanguard.
I rushed out to buy my first telescope.... an Edmund Scientific 3”
f/10 reflector purchased for the royal sum of $29.95 and came with an
“equatorial mount” (a bolt through an angled cutoff shaft) and a Kellner eyepiece. It was a piece of junk but with it I
could examine the craters on the moon, sunspots (projected on the ceiling of
course), Orion’s nebula and other faint fuzzies.
Years later I graduated to a 10” f/6 Newtonian home built DOB using all Meade
off the shelf parts except for the tube, diagonal, and focuser. The DOB lasted
about as long as I could stand not trying to capture stuff on film like I saw
in Sky and Telescope so I broke down and bought their “Research Grade” German Equatorial Mount. Well to make a long story
short it ain’t “research grade” unless all the
research was going to go into why it wouldn’t track worth a damn. To boot it
weighed a ton and a hernia was a real possibility when setting it up. It began
to collect dust. More years went by and the advent of CCD imaging arrived with Richard
Berry’s Cookbook Camera…a do it yourself electronic imaging system that would
negate the crappy mount by allowing short images to be stacked (added).
So I built one.
On April 4, 1997 it achieved First Light.
I realized after several imaging attempts that it REALLY
needed to be housed somewhere permanently to avoid the aforementioned setup
hassles (and the hernia).
So I built the Dogpatch Observatory…in
the woods. I mean REALLY in the woods.
So began my love affair with CCD imaging. But alas it was sort of
one sided since I was ignorant of proper imaging techniques and processing.
With kids, a house to maintain, working, community involvement, and so on I
really didn’t have the time to learn it properly. I tried but it just didn’t
sink in. Then again… maybe it’s the “man thing” about not needing or reading
directions.
Then we decided to really screw our lives up by building a custom
home. So now with a less than two year old observatory (in the woods no less)
I’m about to embark on a two year foray into the joys of finding a proper plan
we can both agree on, a good builder, an excellent piece of land, and the
jungle of bureaucratic permits, inspections, and just plain bad luck that
attends to any large project. Edsal Murphy loves
large projects. He has written a huge set of laws regarding things. He has
become world famous for these laws. He states “anything that can go wrong will”
and “if everything is going smoothly you have obviously overlooked something”. Edsal, you were never so right…unfortunately.
In 1998 I found 3.5 acres of former soybean field in a very nice
community. There is NOT a tree on it. There is NOT a single tree leaf on it.
The nearest tree is 300 feet away. The lot is isolated from the main part of
the development and only has six lots in our section. We found a plan that
worked for our pending retirement about five years down the road. We found a
builder that was recommended by my daughter-in–law. We signed the contracts. We
purchased the lot. Construction began the following spring.
We fired our builder that summer for incompetence.
I won’t go into the gory details except to say an 18-week building
schedule became an 18-month ordeal to find our own subcontractors, undo the
screw-ups our “builder” caused, do a lot of the work
on our own to keep within budget, get through the mandatory inspections, and
get an occupancy permit. Do you realize that if one plumber roughs in your
pipes, getting a different plumber to finish the work is damn near impossible? Like pulling teeth without Novocain. We succeeded on all
fronts despite Edsal Murphy and his laws. So…
I built another observatory…the Dogpatch
II.
I installed my 10” Newt and “Research Grade” mount in it.
I tried taking more images.
I purchased two Byers gear sets to try to alleviate the “Research
Grade” mount problems.
I found that you cannot turn a sows ear
into a silk purse no matter how many diamonds you put on it.
I decided to get out of the rut of home built scope stuff and
crappy mounts.
I’ve had enough!
I bought a Celestron Nex$tar 11 GP$ $CT and $hort
Tube 80 refractor.
I bought my $BIG $T-8XE CCD Camera, CFW-8 Filter Wheel, and
ROBOFOCU$ motorized focus system.
I bought a WHOLE LOT of new eyepiece$
and acce$$orie$.
I joined all these e-groups and read all these pro and con comments
about the very equipment I had just purchased.
I read about the difficulties in using my new CCD camera.
I READ the directions!
I felt sick. What have I just blown all my hard earned money on?
You know, astronomy is very similar to boating which is often
called “a hole in the water you pour money into” except in this case it’s not
on the water and for the most part it’s stationary. It does however share the
exorbitant costs with boating, which unfortunately (or fortunately) is another
of my hobbies. But that’s another $tory.
I have adapted. But did I stop there? No. After 14 years of dealing
witth the quirks of the NexStar11, I dismounted the
11" OTA in 2016, sold the fork mount and APT wedge, add purchased a HDX110
GEM mount with direct drive microstepped
stepper motors. It apparently has it's
own design flaws but now I'm into the world of GEM flips and all the things I
didn't have to deal with when using the fork mount.
Having read this discourse this far I suppose you are interested in
seeing what all this is about so below are the links to the various stuff
mentioned above.
The Original Dogpatch
Observatory
The New Dogpatch II
Observatory
My Former Work for NASA and Swales Aerospace
Links (Astronomy, Electronics Suppliers,
Cookbook sites, Software, etc.)
Any
questions/comments drop me a line.
Last
updated: Sunday, May 22, 2016