Hoepfully the weather and the scope mount will stabilize

We have been having some minor problems and not much in the way of clear nights lately.

We have had some problems wit the mount. These have been due to some pointing errors and also at time the mount will runaway. That's a strange term so I'll explain it. The mount doesn't run down the street, but when it's moving the telescope toward a star under computerized control, the mount will at times miss it's target or lose track of the target and continue moving out of control until it reaches a point where the mount reaches a safety limit.

Safety limits a locations where the mount moves to far and the counterweight are too high or the telescope could hit the mount. So the build in boundary in the computer goto controller will stop the telescope from crashing into the pier or the mount itself, but the controller is non responsive and the mount has to be rebooted. This is the nature of a runaway, the mount runs away out of control and we lose control over it.

To fix this we reprogram the star model or cold star and reprogram mount settings. There's other diagnostics involved as well, mostly trial and error and reading up and studying suggested solutions from other Gemini mount users that have a similar telescope mount.

So we've been having a few members come out to do diagnostics and also we do a little star gazing, but not much. We at times get a bit carried away and look at a few objects of interest because something may be out and the sky might be decent for a short time.

So I haven't been inviting the public out much on this blog the past week. The main reason is diagnostics and the mount, but also the sky conditions are often bad and haze and clouds are moving in. Well spend some time trying to simulate or recreate a pointing error and other times briefly looking at some object like Jupiter while there's a break in the clouds.

Frankly I don't want to tell folks to come by and then have them watch a boring diagnostic session or perhaps get in the way of core group members who are working on the mount. And if sky conditions are really mixed and iffy, (if iffy is a good term to use here?) I don't want to invite a lot of people and club members and have them drive out and then show them a cloudy sky and just sit here hoping for the clouds to clear. I've spent about five hours this week under totally cloudy skies when forecasts were for clear skies.

So we are still here.

Tonight there will be a early break in the sky but it's supposed to be cloudy after the early evening hours. The core group will try to do some extensive changes to the mount and maybe really put in a great model, called a t point model. But it's likely that we will not even have time and cloudless skies long enough to get it all done tonight. We can only hope.

So if you see the observatory open early in the evening it's probably going to be open for diagnostics and we probably won't invite the public in.

If conditions are really nice and we are there and you see a telescope outside I may have a scope outside for visitors to peer through. Jupiter is a great target right now. Especially after 11pm as it rises higher.

There is also a faint comet that we have prig rammed into the sky software. It was magnitude 7 last week and supposedly an essay target to see, but we couldn't see it through the c14. We were able to bring it out very faintly on a photograph we tried to get. The sky glow and drift errors in the mount mass longer exposes impossible.

We got the best image with a mild sky glow filter that George brought along.

The comet is getting brighter but it's tail is not visible even in photos from George's observatory which has darker skies and better cameras.

Here's a photo of the comet, it's not very good and really just an attempt to see it and see if it's in the field of view. It's not a real astrophotography of real quality that most would work on and post but rather just a test photo from my canon t1i eos camera.

You'll want to click on the link photo and look for the small faint blob near the center of the photo. Can you see it? Not much to look at. More photos stacked with better processing would show a better image.

We took some photos of Jupiter between clouds as e clouds dominated the weather the past couple of times I was out there.



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