CGEM repair

Next week a fellow astronomer will come by to install new controlboards in his damaged CGEM. I am carefully studying plans now. I think there can be some short circuit inside the mount. I will check it very carefully, because if something goes wrong we blow the PIC controllers n the boards.

No Takahashi progress this week because of bad weather

This week we planned on doing a new attempt on polar aligning the Takahashi. Because of the bad weather we were not able to do that. Next Saturday a rough altitude alignment will be made by people from the Halley observatory using an angle measurement device, they will also clean the Takahashi dome because it is very dirty. Hopefully next week we will get some clear nights so we do a new driftalignment procedure.

Another try at aligning the Takahashi mount

The weather for tomorrownight looks fair so I planned everything for another (and hopefully final) go at aligning the Takahashi mount. We have an angle measurement device for roughly aligning the altitude. Last week I also had a go with EQalign at my own EQ6. With that exta experience we should be able to come good way in aligning the Astrotechniek mount. The only thing I am not looking forward to is turning the dome 90 degrees when switching between altitude and azimuth alignment.

Telescope removed from observatory

My neighbour is tearing down the wall between our gardens because he is going to build a new gardenhouse. The foundation is very thick so it needs to be hacked away by a professional company. Just to be sure nothing happens to my optics I removed the telescope from the NEQ6 and stored it in the house.

Takahashi alignment problem found

Yesterday I was testing the driftalignment method on my NEQ6 mount in my backyard observatory and found out that I swapped the calibration axis during the Halley calibration. Stupid beginners mistake I should not have made. This gives me good hope for the next alignment trial, I am sure we will succeed the next time.

Takahashi altitude alignment

Today the altitude of het mount was measured with an angle measuring device. It showed that the mount is at 48 degrees now, so it must be moved back to where it was. This is very arkward because I must have passed the correct altitude alignment point.
We will first set the mount with the measuring device back to the desired setting for Heesch and use that as a starting point.

Takahashi E-300 on Astrotechniek CP-180 mount progress

After consulting ASH Holland (the original builder of the setup) it became clear that we need to put a metal strip of a few cm. under the forward altitude adjustment bolts in order to reach correct polar alignment. We can also use some of their measurement tools to rougly align the mount on the longitude of the observatory location. That will give a more accurate starting point for aligning the Astrotechniek CP-180 mount. It is now set to max., 5 degrees offset to horizontal, but I think we need to reach 10 degrees offset to reach proper alignment.

1st light after rough altitude alignment of Takahashi on CP-180

Yesterday evening we tried many things on the Takahashi/CP-180 setup of Halley observatory:

- Eos450d comes in focus with special adapter

- Azimuth alignment acceptable

- Altitude alignment difficult. EQalign needed 25 (!) iterations with CP-180 level to reach polar alignment. After letting the CP-180 lean backwards for approx. 5 degrees only 12 iterations (still too much) were needed. 

- I tried a PHD calibration and that succeeded. After that we took a 30sec exposure @ iso1600. See the picture. The collimation is acceptable but the alignment is still not good enough. We need to modify the base of the mount mechanically I think.