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M92

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 07/13/2026 -- No moon, clear skies, great night for broadband imaging.  After prolonged spell with rain, clouds, hot temperatures (crazy hot), finally a night available with good skies.  Key issue -- trying to diagnose persistent problems guiding and imaging near the zenith.  Did note that cables could be a problem. Placed a cable tie on the mount to try and relieve the strain from the combined weight of all the cables... but this tie may have (itself) caused strain if the cables were too short.  Lengthened the amount of cable available to see if this leads to any improvements.  But the fundamental problem appears to be disagreement between Indi/Ekos and the CGEM hand controller on when a meridian flip is (or is not) needed. Possible settings changes to the hand controller?  Parameters involving Ekos for the HA limit?  Hard to say... another night to experiment. Seeing forecast for 07/13-14/2026 from meteoblue (top) and cleardarkskies (bottom) su...
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M 63 / M13 / M12 / NGC 6888

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 05/11/2026 -- No moon (until after 03:00) and few (if any) clouds... great opportunity for wide band imaging.  Noted M63 is in an perfect location (fingers crossed) for collection this evening. Seeing forecast for 05/11-12/2026 from meteoblue (top) and cleardarkskies (bottom) suggesting good views for this evening / morning. Started with an initial polar drift alignment with PHD2 running on the Odroid C4.  First iteration: 10.19'. Turn azimuth adjustment knob left.  Over-corrected (-6').  Next iteration, brought this down to <1'.  Set up the scheduler for M 63 and the sequence for 0C camera, 20x80s exposure, gain of 285 and offset of 24 (as usual).  The Indi Allsky backyard camera showed a pseudo sky quality metric of ~4960 t 22:25 (great sky quality).  The Weewx outdoor weather station showed: "time": "2026-05-11T22:25:00-0400", "generator": "weewx 5.3.1" "temperature": {"value": 50.95862068965519, "...
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M 94

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 04/17/2026 -- Clear skies, no moon.  Setting up for broadband imaging for M 94. Coming from a disappointing previous session where the Indi Svbony CCD driver was crashing repeatedly preventing operation. Uninstalled all Ekos/Indi software (and repository)...reset to a stock Ubuntu with no extra repositories.  Then after reinstalling several days later, found the new Indi/Ekos/Kstars installation fully working. Seeing forecast for 04/17-18/2026 showing great conditions expected after 01:00. Started with an initial focus and found small donut stars.  Tried using the Shoestring Astronomy FCUBS and Meade Zero Tilt micro-focuser...but found it reached its inner limit (likely due to very warm tempertaures near 70F).  Manual adjustment with the primary mirror adjustment knob on the Meade LX10 brought this to sharp focus.   Next performed an initial polar drift alignment in PHD2 running on the venerable Odroid C4.  Initial error was only ~4'.  Adjus...
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