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A few shots with the new telescope
It’s been smoky so I’ve had time to take apart the cheap 114mm f/8 refractor I picked up. Both mirrors are cleaned, the mirror clips were way too tight, and I center spotted the primary for easy collimation. And it looks much better with a coat of purple paint! It’s still smoky but there weren’t…
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Mosaics from older images
After making some moon mosaics recently from images taken specifically for that purpose, I decided to go back to some of my older images and see what I could put together. First up is one of my oldest moon shots, a video taken by my Lego webcam through a 70/700mm refractor. I recorded as the…
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New Telescope!
I picked up a used 144mm f/8 Newtonian. I fixed it up a bit but it’s still in need of a good collimation. Visually it seemed sharp at low powers, but it shows significant issues at higher magnification or with a camera.
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Sunspots with a cell phone!
Lots of wildfire smoke in the air meant there was no point in setting up the scope, but close to sunset I noticed just how dim and red the sun was and took a picture with my phone. Looking at it after I noticed a faint sunspot. Cranking up the contrast revealed a few more!
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More moon!
Another mosaic, a few days after the last. I’ve found some interesting details but haven’t researched their names yet.
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Some blurry DSOs
Rough seeing and the moon being out meant that I didn’t get very good picture of fainter objects. I’m waiting for a night of excellent seeing to really dial in the collimation as well.
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A few more DSOs
After lunar and planetary observing I tracked down a few DSOs. Transparency is still pretty bad, and with the moon still in the sky contrast was limited.
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Mars, Venus, and a supernova
Another smoky night, but SN 2023ixf showed through. Visually only Arcturus and Venus were out.