Astronomy and CCD'S or ‘A Brief History of Time’
I became aware in October, 1957.
Sputnik.
My first telescope was an Edmund Scientific 3” f/10 reflector
purchased for the royal sum of $29.95 when I was 15 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.
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 100 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 took 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 my 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 egroups 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 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.
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.
My Cookbook 245
Images
Messier
Images (M1 to M110)
NGC and IC Images (Galaxies, Planetaries,
Nebulas and Clusters)
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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, July 04, 2004