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Golden State Star Party 2017 from the Air!

July 11, 2017

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Losmandy G11 Gears and Stiction

I've been peeling onions in the backyard these past nights. Based on some questions from Marek and Carl, they were experiencing strange DEC behavior when guiding near Sadr during August. I felt that much of the problem was due to tracking through the Zenith where scope balance is most ineffective at keeping DEC meshed.

Since I'd moved onto the problem after handling some of the earlier questions about Gemini systems and getting the camera cooling nailed down, my current target is the same region as the problem area. I quickly saw similar DEC jumping as bad as what Marek was experiencing.

Calibration tips for the Pentax K10D

Interesting things that I've learned over the years for calibrating astro-images with my Pentax K10D camera.
The Pentax K10D camera is an older design, released back in 2006 when Pentax was an independent company. Since then, it has passed through the hands of Hoya and now is a part of Hitachi. I'm not sure of what will happen with the Pentax name, but for now, it remains an independent brand.

As some context for why I'm using Pentax for my astrophotos, the short answer is "use what you have." The long answer is that I already had an investment in old glass and wanted to continue to use it.

Major Reconfiguration of the Telescopes

More chasing flexure
I have been going after this challenge for nearly all of 2013, starting back at the beginning of the year. There has been evidence of a slow drift in RA in the main images that has been difficult to remove.

My recent efforts were centered on firming up the camera mount by pre-stressing the flange springs. This has worked pretty well, the camera now exhibits a flatness that is good. It is a little artificial compared to the older, unstressed configuration, I'd like to make it less affected.

Still, I was seeing a shift in the camera position over the range of motion of the mount. I have started taking reference images from the guide camera at the beginning and end of a session, including before a meridian flip. The advantage of doing this is that it gives a baseline of what the guide camera sees. In doing this exercise, I can tell that the guide camera does not shift as the mount rotates.

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Golden State Star Party 2017 from the Air!

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