Koehler Urban Astrophotography

 03/08/2025 -- Cleaned the corrector as well as the primary and secondary mirror on the venerable Meade LX10 SCT. Also cleaned the surfaces on the Svbony Sv405cc, the UV/IR cut filter and the Starizona SCT corrector III using generic lens cleaning wipes (Costco/Amazon) and the ancient lens cleaning kit blower & brush.  Struggled with streaking and dust... but eventually got to a point where improvement was clear (especially for the SCT corrector and the secondary.  Tested outdoors with the OTA reassembled and found major dust / dirt problems were solved.  Tested collimation against a bright 1st magnitude star and found no issues (thankfully). Defocused pattern looked symmetrical.  Tested using AstroDMX-Capture on the Odroid C4 viewed over Remmina RDC client (using the UV/IR cut filter...broad band imaging). Captured the moon and then switched over to the dual narrow-band (OIII, Ha) filter...since the moon is up at 79% all night.  Attempted to get the Ow...

 03/02/2025 -- After setting up and testing the new rotary table on the Meade standard field tripod and performing a polar alignment, tested exposures for broadband imaging using the UV/IR cut filter. This includes the Meade LX10 SCT, the Starizona SCT corrector III and the zero shift micro-focuser... all using the Svbony Sv405cc with gain of 228 and offset 24. Noted several large annoying dark donuts from spots on the mirror (or corrector...or focal plane?) in the 60s test light frame (even after cleaning the outside of the corrector plate with an optical wipe.  After testing the 60s exposure with these settings on M106, set up the scheduler to run through 03:00 and then switch to M51 (which should be in view by then). Skies are quite good with no moon, no clouds. The Indi Allsky backyard camera shows a pseudo-sky quality metric of ~5600 at 22:22...which is fairly good (with ~4000 being exceptionally clear). Meteoblue seeing forecast captured at 22:20 on 03/02/2025 showing ve...

 3/2/2025 -- Added a 4" rotary table on top of the Meade standard field tripod to improve azimuth adjustment.  Bolted an inexpensive Chinese aluminum EQ6 adapter plate on top of the table with five bolts.  The whole assembly screwed together onto the mount...then bolted the rotary table onto the top of the tripod.  A truly Franken-mount! After installing the rotary table and the mount back on the tripod, mounted the counter weights and the 8" Meade LX10 SCT OTA and brought the setup out onto the deck. Roughly aligned with cellphone compass in the daylight hours and installed the Odroid and cables.  Powered up after dinner and used PHD2 on the odroid to check the polar alignment. Initial result was surprisingly close at -23" after several minutes of drifting. Adjusted the rotary table from an initial position of 6 to 6.5 and restarted the drift alignment in PHD2.  This resulted in the polar alignment error dropping to -5.6".  After an additional adjustm...

 11/24/2024 -- Testing out the new (to me) Meade Zero Image-Shift Microfocuser for the venerable Meade LX10 2000mm F10 SCT... connected to the shoestring astronomy controller on the Odroid XU4....and controlled with Indi/Ekos.  Initial focusing test showed promise using an initial starting movement of 1500ms... this collection against M1 will see how the microfocuser fares with an actual collection. Meade Zero Image-Shift Microfocuser... into which the Starizona Corrector III is inserted. Weather started good from 18:00 through mid-night, but clouds are expected and the moon rises (at 28% full) at 01:30... so no real expectations of greatness... but a good night to test equipment.  Using only a 1.25" UV/IR cut filter (broadband color imaging).  After collecting a test image, set exposure to 100s at gain 285 with offset 32 at 0 C.  Spent considerable time re-adjusting the polar alignment (swinging back and forth between -800 to +50". Finally gave up around -11" e...