|
2008.05.15 We're back after almost three years of inactivity. A number of things contributed to this hiatus, the largest of which (for me) was the inadequacy of our equipment and facilities. We just couldn't get the EOS D300 to come to focus reliably, even with the STI Stilleto Ronchi focuser. Bob's telescope proved to be too unstable in the slightest breeze, and there is seldom a still day around here. Finally, the progress on improving the facilities and access situation at the El Rito telescope had completely stagnated since we joined the local astronomy club at the end of 2004. In the interrim years, Canon released an astrophotography-specific camera body, the 20Da, which almost coaxed me out of retirement. However, it's $2500 price tag didn't work well with my postdoc salary. The primary draw of the 20Da was its "live view" capability, meaning that you could focus perfectly by looking at the live image on the camera's LCD screen. While this would completely solve all of our focus problems, it wasn't enough to get me past the price tag. Recently, Canon has begun including live view capability on all of their upper-tier prosumer camera bodies including the EOS 40D, which is a massive improvement over the 20Da in every way (except, perhaps, the inclusion of the standard IR filter). It also costs less than half as much. Now that I'm no longer a postdoc and have a real salary, I decided to go for it and buy the new back. Focus problems are now officially solved (in theory, anyway). Now the remaining problem is either the fact that Bob's 14" SCT mount isn't stable enough or that we don't have good access to the 16" SCT at El Rito. I wrote the caretakers of the El Rito scope an email asking what was needed to get anytime access to the facility and got a very favorable response. We're going to set up a meeting with the folks at the college and get Bob and I onto the list of people who can request access to the dome at any time. Once this is in place, we'll have access to a good stable wind-shielded scope with which to do some imaging! The only caveat is that the El Rito scope doesn't have the dovetail rails and counterweights necessary for mounting heavy piggyback cameras or guiding gear. This is a reasonably straightforward problem to solve, however. Especially now that Bob has access to a CnC machine at his work and can fabricate rails and what-not for just the cost of the bulk aluminum. Assuming the meeting with the NNMCC people goes well, I assume that we'll be up and running at El Rito this summer. Bring on the clear weather! |