ShahGazer Rambling about Astrophotography, Coding and Clouds

Finally, my home observatory has finally finished. After about 5 month of construction, the final piece of the puzzle was put in place. I have now a complete solution for an automated imaging observatory. For now, this is a photo of the equipment in place. I will probably do a proper page for this observatory soon. At the moment I am very happy on what I have and can see numerous projects and opportunity when observing from a permanent site.

Finally, I decided to get my photo taken with all the equipments that I have now, using either when doing my outreach astronomy programs, or doing my personal observations or imaging. Not for the faint hearted.. :-)

Note: The live streaming services provided was called Night Skies Network, and NOT NightSkyNetworks as stated on the photo (left). My mistake.I will make the necessary correction as soon as possible. I attended the virtual online observation by Rock Mallin via the really cool Night Sky Networks Night Skies Network . It was way late at night in Canada, while I was comfortably having my breakfast here in Kuala Lumpur! The setup used was a 16 inch LX200 coupled with MFR-5 and using the new Mallincam VSS . Integration setting was 2 seconds. We were looking at M42, and the live view itself was wild! As mentioned by one of the attendees, it looked pretty much 3D! The dust lanes (or clumps) really pops up in front of the trapeziums! I couldn't resist capturing some of the frames and stacked it up. The photo speaks by itself! It was a combination of 20 frames each at 2 sec integration. So, in all a total of 40 SECONDS! exposure time! Whew!!! The VSS seems to be displaying nicely. There...

The sky was exceptional tonight. Yesterday I was too exhausted to setup after a call from fellow amateur, Pak Aziz, asking me if I was actually out, up and observing. After managed to catch a -3 magnitude ISS passing low over the southern horizon, silently gliding over Crux, I setup the mount and Equinox. Planning just to photograph the moon, I did not bother to hook up with EQMOD (just yet). Then all hell breaks loose! The 2-star alignment was in progress. Pointing to Procyon... OK. Then slewing to Spica (which was very near the Moon), and that's when I noticed the mount started to creaked! Holding on the mount, I can feel it vibrates and seems to struggle moving the RA axis. No problem with the Dec axis. I was thinking probably the I did not balance the scope enough. So, shutting down and re-balance the scope, and slew again. And again it creaks, and this time it started to shudder pretty hard! Bummer! Ok. Troubleshooting time. I removed the counterweight and the Equinox, leaving...

This is my new scope, Skywatcher 80mm Equinox. The photo show the scope on my newly bought HEQ5 Pro mount, which was also recently bought from Dr. Rowi. He used it only once and offered a really good price which I simply cannot resists burning my pocket! It has been almost 8 years since I upgraded any of my telescopes, and it seems to be a good time to do one as everyone else is doing so! And as usual, the weather was overcast for days later. Only after coming back to Kuala Lumpur,did I managed to test with my Mallincam Hyper Color , and with a sigh of relieve, I can reach focus with it. Now for serious studying before the China eclipse trip in July! Note: Dr.Rowi bought the mount from CK Lim of Perseids Telescopes and Binoculars in Penang, and I got the 80ED from him as well. Good service and you should try contacting him for other goodies he had.