- Building an All-Sky Off-Grid Camera: Part 4The final hurdle at this point was finding an enclosure that satisfied a few criteria. It needed to be weatherproof first of all. While it’s pretty dry where I plan
- Building an Off-Grid All-Sky Camera: Part 3The second problem to be solved when working off-grid is power. Solar seemed like the obvious choice—if not the only choice. I suppose a wind turbine might have been an
- Building an Off-Grid All-Sky Camera: Part 2The first “problem” to overcome with an off-grid all-sky camera is connectivity. There’s no sense in taking all-sky photos if you can’t get them uploaded someplace you can see them.
- Building an Off-Grid All-Sky Camera:Part 1In 2021, I purchased a 20 acre property in a remote part of my home state on the eastern slopes of the Cascades. It sits high above the valley floor,
- Orange Pi as Imaging ComputerI’ve been running a Raspberry Pi 4 for the last couple of seasons as my imaging computer. That setup has worked pretty well. But the upgrades to KStars/Ekos have outstripped
- It’s a Bird? It’s a Plane? No, just incompetence.I recently spent a night imaging remotely at a dark site about 30 minutes from my house. When I started processing the results, I noticed a single frame that had
- EKOS’ New Polar Alignment Routine is the Bee’s KneesMany of us have limited sky views. As I’ve mentioned a thousand times here, my backyard view is abysmal. Not only do I have no view of Polaris… I have
- Inaugural Galaxy SeasonThis spring marks my first “Galaxy Season” as an astroimager. Let me clarify: this spring marks my first “Galaxy Season” as a completely incompetent, at times bumbling, wanna be astroimager.
- Naked Rosette: Removing Stars with StarNet++I’ve seen quite a few photos of nebulae on Astrobin where the stars have been completely removed. Some of these are absolutely seamless… you can’t see even a trace of
- Trying to Make Chicken Salad out of Chicken S**tAny moron can get a halfway decent shot of the Great Orion Nebula. I should know. I’m any moron. I went out the other night to go for round 2
- Orion: So good I can’t even mess it upI’m learning the hard way (the only way I seem capable of learning anything) that there is nothing easy about astrophotography. The whole endeavor is really just a series of
- The Quest to Collimate a HyperStar: Part 1I have the HyperStar v.4 from Starizona to pair with my Celestron EdgeHD 8 scope. It replaces the secondary mirror on the EdgeHD and turns a 2000mm focal length f/10
- EQ6-R Pro: Direct USB Connection How-ToIn the not-so-distant past, the folks at SkyWatcher added a new feature to its popular EQ6 mount: a USB port on the mount head. This is essentially just a built-in
- 24 Hours of RainI wish I could say that this is a rare occurrence, but here is an illustration of the all-too-present reality of Western Washington in January: a full day of steady
- How to Start a Hobby in the Worst Possible LocationHi. I live in the Pacific Northwest. More specifically, I live about 40 miles east of the farthest west you can possibly get in the Pacific Northwest. You might have