Northwest Astro

Some may notice that the header for this blog now has a couple new links.

The traffic being generated has actually been growing, and I have managed to hit spikes in the range of 3GB/day and more in traffic. It means I have to take extra steps to keep the site accessible, and help pay for the bandwidth being used. I have a couple options at my disposal for offsetting the cost:

• Place up ads such as Google Ad Sense.
• Ask for donations directly.
• Offer something up for sale where the revenue can be used to help pay for hosting.

Personally, I love the look of a clean website that doesn’t need advertising. Especially when some of the ads I would pick up wouldn’t be the best or even useful for the target audience. I’d also have no control over what they are, so I couldn’t exactly block ads from a company whom I’d rather not do business with or give traffic to. Or bump up vendors who do a good job serving the customer.

Asking for donations also tends to make me squirm a little. I understand that other sites get by fine on it, and I don’t even have a problem with being charitable (there are a couple sites I do donate to in order to keep the author doing what he/she is already doing). I just don’t like the idea of asking for handouts. I really don’t. I’d rather that someone get something for their trouble.

Sample: Lunar Print

But, one option came to mind: make some of my best images available as prints, suitable to be framed or posted somewhere. After investigating my options, getting samples, re-cropping/exporting/tweaking images, and generally doing a fair amount of work, I am ready to get started. I’ve gone through a couple different online print services, and found one which I think I am happy with, on both the quality of the print and the price of it. Each size print offered is created from the original, full-size, post-processed image and re-scaled and re-cropped for each size print. You can see a sample of the highly-saturated Lunar mosaic to the right. The sample is for an 11×14 print. Larger prints will actually have smaller fonts to account for the larger area, and text will only be on astrophotographs to give a quick idea of the subject.

A couple things to keep in mind:

• These are printed on demand and shipped straight to you from the printer. They will take a couple days to print, and standard shipping will also take awhile. Expect it to take a little over a week to reach you. I will send an e-mail letting you know when the order is placed with the printer.
• Shipping to you is included in the price. International shipping is extra, however.
• Not every image will become available as a print. It doesn’t make sense to turn it into a web store when all I want is to offset the hosting costs.
• If you have questions or requests, you can reach me using the ‘Contact’ link above.

I am working on a couple articles aimed at the beginning astrophotographer, especially those wanting to learn some specific tips and tricks for capture, stacking and post-processing. So stay tuned.

The blog has been down a bit the last few days. The shared server I use apparently came under election-week strain. Since it uses a single address for possibly dozens of sites, even one getting hammered can bring all the sites to a crawl.

I took advantage of this to do a couple small upgrades since some of the updates to the address servers were going to take up a full 24 hours anyways. You should notice that the URL is now www.nwastro.net, and you shouldn’t notice any more downtimes due to the shared address. Some further tweaks to the layout have been done, and I have a couple more minor changes that will probably show up down the road.

Things have been cloudy around here, lately, so not a whole lot of time under the stars these days.

I’ve bought my two new scopes, and very quickly learned that used gear is quite often the better deal. If I am looking for something specific, I’ll hit up the used market first before buying new. If I don’t need the part in the near future, I’ll wait until one shows up on the used market.

I see 3 major benefits:

1. Used gear holds its value longer.
   Astronomy gear is interesting in that it is actually a bit like a car. The moment you drive it off the lot, it loses at least 15-20% of its value. After that initial drop, the value doesn’t really change very much until that model is made obsolete. And for eyepieces, some designs don’t become obsolete for decades. Scope models remain relevant for up to a decade, and sometimes longer. While you aren’t going to be making money, buying used saves you that initial drop in value, and limits your losses if you do need to get out of the hobby. 
2. Used gear is (usually) field-proven.
   A brand new piece of equipment, especially a scope, has not been under the stars. The first thing you wind up having to do is check collimation and star test it to see if you can discover any optical imperfections. Scopes that pass these star tests with flying colors tend to demand higher pricing, especially if the seller can prove it. Dr Clay is known for his Supercharge service, and scopes that have gone through the service tend to demand more money. The flip side of this is that you know how it will perform. If the seller has no proof of the performance of the equipment, then it is no different than buying the same scope new. Buying a new scope is a bit like the lottery, because you might get a good specimen, and you might not. You won’t know until it lands.
3. Used gear can be inspected before the sale.
   While again, this doesn’t work if the seller is untrustworthy, this has been a huge benefit to me. You don’t have to buy used gear blind like you normally do with new gear. You can kick the tires to some extent, even if the seller is across the country. You can ask for pictures, inquire as to how it was treated and used. For scopes you can ask for images of defocused stars to do a ‘remote star test’ of a kind. You can get a feel for the true condition of the product before laying out the money for it. 

Now, this might not be all the benefits, and there is always the trust pit-fall when it comes to buying equipment from an individual rather than a reputable dealer. But, I have found that buying used results in a cheaper set of gear at pretty much the same level of quality. Sure, it might have a couple blemishes or wear, but it is only cosmetic, and you can target only the sellers that sell pristine gear if it does bother you. As the optics have to be in good shape to deliver the promised performance, an amateur astronomer will usually do their best to keep lenses and other sensitive parts in good shape.

Now, I have not had bad luck with new gear. The ETX I had was in top shape and offered excellent optics. The 10″ Meade I have now looks like it might be one of the better specimens of the entire LX200R/LX200-ACF line with no inherent optical problems. Some of my cheaper gear I’ve had worse luck on, such as a 90-degree mirror diagonal that actually messes up the alignment of the scope’s optics.

Overall, I’d still recommend buying used, especially in the current economic climate. Some people selling are doing so in order to weather the storm, and I’d rather have my money going there. In addition, it is where you will start seeing more and more deals until the economy stabilizes and more people can afford this hobby again.

There are problems when it comes to astronomy gear. You go to sell something, and you wind up getting something back in return. Your never quite sure why you do it, but you do. I recently sold my original scope, an ETX-125PE. I just didn’t have the room or the will to keep it, a 10″ Meade scope, and a smaller refractor to piggyback on top of the 10″ Meade. One too many scopes. So, I found a buyer, but instead of just offering full cash for the scope, this guy offers up some cash along with an Orion 80ED.

To make a long story short, I took the offer as it would piggyback nicely on the 10″ Meade, and actually fit the role of a decent ‘grab and go’ if I got a tripod for it. This means the AT66ED went up on the chopping block as well for resale. Glad I got that one used so it will resell better. I’ve got a few comments on the used market, and why it is an amateur’s friend, but that is better served in a different post.

Double Cluster Then

Double Cluster Now

So, the first clear night in awhile was on Tuesday, and I am itching to see what this Orion 80ED can do with a camera hanging off the end. As I wasn’t entirely happy with the way the Double Cluster shots came out earlier due to the violet stars, I figured it was a good place to start. Setup the scope in the cold, let it cool down a bit, and started taking images. Didn’t get around to playing with them until late Wednesday night after working late. Still not entirely happy with the result, but I rushed through stacking, and took all 60 exposures rather than just the ones that didn’t show streaking of stars. I still think there is a lot of good data here as long as I am more picky about the images added to the stack. I’ll probably revisit it in the future.

So, the thing is… if you do your observing at an apartment complex, expect people’s questions and interest. Up until now, it usually has just been those in the apartments next to mine showing interest as they came home or left. Two people have looked through the scope, just to find that when it is focused for my poor eyesight, they can’t see anything. Next time I have someone there looking through, I’ll have to make sure to use my glasses to focus for them.

Tuesday night though, that was something else. I got the scope setup, aligned, and aimed at the Double Cluster. I was only planning on taking images for about 40 minutes or so, doing a little bit of moon observing after that, and then head in. During that 40 minutes, I had 3 waves of people asking questions, interested in the pictures I was taking, and so on. A couple were interested in trying to look through, but since it was rather cold, I tried to ask politely to please not touch the scope as it was sensitive to that sort of thing while taking the pictures, and said if they saw me outside again, that I would be happy to let them see a few things then.

It got fairly quiet by the time I was done, and I took a couple shots of the Pleiades as a sort of experiment. I’ll definitely need more practice and a different approach before I can tackle that target. I just really got images of the Seven Sisters and absolutely no hint that there was a nebula here. Just hints that the dew had gotten to the lens on the Orion scope.

After that, the 10″ scope was pointed at the moon to see what I could see since it was still dew-free. I was greeted with some of the sharpest views I have gotten of the moon. Any night vision I had up to that point was completely shot, but the sheer level of detail I was able to get at high powers was amazing. It was possible to see fairly fine detail across the entire face, and make out craters I haven’t even seen before.

I might have to revisit the big moon photograph experiment during the next full moon, now that I know letting the scope cool down has an absolutely enormous effect on the detail you can capture.

For those who have started to accumulate bits of gear for long-exposure photography via a laptop, and are running out of ports, usually the first thing you consider as a fix is a hub. What if powering the hub over USB using the laptop isn’t enough? Then you are in trouble because you can’t just go out and buy the ‘car adapter’ for your USB hub. Doesn’t mean you can’t make one though.

In my case, I came into a Belkin USB 2.0 4-Port Hub on sale, and I liked the design that it had two USB ports on the side, and two on the top. It would help me later on if I decided to put the hub and a couple other USB devices into a single hobby box. Building a ‘hub’ which instead exposed 2 USB ports, a Serial port for scope control, and an autoguiding port for long-exposure adjustments could be an interesting side project down the road.

The problem is that this Hub will be expected to be used in the field, with all 4 ports in use. Total current would be very close if not a bit over the 500mA limit the laptop is allowed to provide. Also, this sort of drain would shorten the battery life of the laptop in a noticeable way. Instead, why not try to power it with 12V batteries and power tanks commonly being used by amateur astronomers to power their gear?

First, you need to track down a 12VDC car adapter at the right voltage and amperage rating for your purposes. For a USB hub, it is safer to get a high-amperage car adapter with a fuse, instead of trying to go for something more common but rated for lower current use. I found this High Power Car Charger for under 10$ and makes a good target for a quick DIY project. It is rated for up to 2A, and when it arrived, I found out that it also uses a 250V/1.5A fast-blow fuse in the plug. Perfect for my uses, and easy to modify because it already provides the right voltage to the output, it just needs the right plug.

To do the mod with this particular hub and charger (other hubs may be a bit different on the plug it accepts), you will need one more part from Radioshack: a size H DC plug. If you are attempting to power a different 5V hub, then you will probably want to get the outer diameter (OD) and inner diameter (ID) measurements from the manual, or take the AC adapter with you to a Radioshack to get the right part. Read on for the beginner’s Do-It-Yourself instructions.

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