Updates

Hi all,

I feel as if I owe the world an update, I know that sounds weird since I am under no obligation to write this blog regularlly. Anyways a few things have happened since my last post (in May) my car burnt to a cinder. So now I have my expedition vehicle  a 2014 Jeep Wrangler unlimited, the good news is this will eventually serve all my purposes, including going to Death Valley and Baja, however it will not be built out until I can pay it off, which is 72 months away. Until then we will have to plan to go to more hospitable locations.

The good news is that I have not been busy which means that I am building out my capacity to do astrophotography. Behold my latest creation:

This is the F/3.9 8" newt on a Orion Atlas EQ-G mount. Sitting in my brothers bedroom. It is not fully operational yet. I have done one iteration of balancing it and I have done a quick look at the colimation along with a first pass at collimating it:

The process is slow, I have been building some cables one which will allow me to control the mount directly via a USB interface using EQMOD. The other which is a serial release cable for my Canon SL1 camera. All in all progress is moving forward and we should at this rate be on track for Alamo Lake in Fall. (fingers crossed)