The Denver Observing Chair

After I got my dobsonian, I started realizing that the constant half-stand, half-crouch was taking its toll on my back.  I also learned that being seated helps improve your observation of those distant celestial bodies by helping you to concentrate on the eye piece and not on keeping your (well, my) aging body still.

I looked at a few commercial options for light weight collapsible chairs and was horrified by the $130-260 price tag on a lot of them!  I dug around a bit more, checked out the forums, and found a link to instructions for making my very own Denver Observing Chair.

Construction of the chair was simple, and relatively rapid.  The most time consuming portion was applying the stain.  Turns out applying three coats (including drying) takes a long time.

At any rate, the end result was marvelous!  Anyone with basic coordination can probably put one of these together, and having a sturdy chair to sit in, that's infinitely adjustable, is priceless!  The only negative aspect is that compared to a commercial aluminum chair, my home made one is somewhat heavier (but totally manageable).

The Denver Observing Chair

The LX200 and the Moon

After I took a couple of pictures of Albireo with the LX200 I decided to try take a picture of our closest celestrial body, the moon.  It was big, it was bright, and it seemed like an easy target.

As it turns out, taking a picture of the moon is easy.  Taking a good picture isn't (for a total novitiate).  My first few images weren't entirely awful, but they sure weren't great either.

LX200, DSLR and the moon.

Acquiring the moon, framing it and setting the timer on the camera wasn't a problem.  Focusing was the trick.  This was the best I could do on my first run.

The LX200 and MallinCam Experiment - M32

M32 - a dwarf elliptical galaxy in the Andromeda constellation. It's a sister galaxy to the more famous Andromeda Galaxy, M31, which is what I actually thought I was capturing with the MallinCam.

It was difficult processing this video as there aren't many good reference images out there for what this galaxy supposedly looks like. Some images show the nucleus being huge, while others show it being small. While I was able to achieve both renditions during processing, I arbitrarily opted for the smaller nucleus.

Messier 32 (NGC 221) - Le Gentil

Either way, I think it looks like a blurry globular cluster.

This shot was taken with a focal reducer on the back of an LX200-ACF.  Next time I'll take off the f/3.3 reducer to get a more magnified view. I attempted to do that after I took this recording, but the clouds beat me.

LX200, DSLR and Albireo

After my experiments with the LX200 and MallinCam, I decided that I had to break out something that could capture color.  My DSLR.  Problem is, long exposures on the LX200 with its alt-az fork mount, would (relatively) quickly result in stair trailing when capturing the faint fuzzies.

So, the answer was to go for the real bright objects, stars.  Short exposure and I still get some color!

Albireo - double star

As it turns out, the brighter yellow star in this pair is itself part of another binary system!

The LX200 and MallinCam Experiment - M57

Messier 57 was my second attempt at astrophotography.  This DSO is Relatively bright and well within reach of the Meade LX200 I was lucky enough to have access to.

Messier 57 (NGC 6720) - Ring Nebula

At this point in my experience, I didn't know whether to expect color in my photographs, but as it turns out, this particular MallinCam couldn't do long enough exposures to get any color.  I forget exactly how many frames this particular video was, but probably several thousand.  Stacked with Registax and then roughly processed in Photoshop.

The LX200 and MallinCam Experiment - M3

My first foray into astrophotography began with a Meade LX200-ACF with a MallinCam Jr.  The LX200 is great catadioptric telescope that sits on a rock solid alt-az mount.  My alma mater made this equipment available for use to help promote astronomy at the school and in the community.

The MallinCam is a very sensitive CCD video camera that features frame integration, allowing a live view of deep space objects (within reach of this telescope) on an external display.  This is a terrific way to show groups of people what the telescope is looking at without having to form a queue at the eye piece.

This particular MallinCam is the entry-level version.  The frame integration is insufficient for capturing color so everything comes through as grayscale.  My very first photograph was of M3 the huge globular cluster in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici.

It was terrible:

Messier 3 (NGC 5272) - Globular Cluster

I took 2.5 minutes of footage and processed it using Registax.  This was an experience in and of itself.  The end result was a low resolution, coma-stricken, posterized shot of M3.

What an awful picture... but what a headrush to have captured something 199 quadrillion miles from earth!