1st Helresa Star Party

A while ago a friend of ours moved from the capital of the island Santa Cruz over to the other side of the island, they moved into a small place just outside puntagorda. She had moved there to escape the noise, she is a singer/songwriter and it was hard for her to record in town.
Having moved over there she commented on how many stars there were in the sky and suggested that we bring over the telescope one time so she could take a look.

So last weekend that is what we did, just like the old days we packed our tent and telescopes into the car and headed off. We got there mid afternoon, having had to make a short detour after getting so far along the road only to be told that there was a rally on and we would have to turn back.

Why the F*** didn't it say that at the junction you ..........

I thought to my self as I turned round.

So as I was saying once we got there we started to put up the tent in the blistering heat. Once the tent was up it was time to sit down a have a cup of tea. Our other friend Sheila was there with her son to enjoy the stars. We had a barbecue tea and settled down to watch the clouds roll in. So there we sat outside drinking red wine and chatting Until at last the clouds parted.

Telescope and Palm Trees at Dusk

There was just enough time for me to swear at my computer as I tried to get it to talk to the telescope, as Helen went old school and manually pointed my old trusty ETX90 at Jupiter. Before the clouds rolled in again and we packed up for the night.

The second night was a little better but not by much, The cloud rolled in again but we did manage to get a good look at the Moon and Saturn before we clouded out again.

The Moon, Saturn, Mars and Regulus

Next year at our house with the scope mounted in it permanent location I hope. More on that in the next week or so I hope

A matter of Balance

After a number of weeks procrastinating I finally got round to drilling and tapping the holes that I need to do in order to mount the LX200R OTA on to the dovetail for the EQ6 Pro mount. However having done this and mounted it all up I discovered that when I tried to balance the mount I could not achieve balance with the existing counterweight bar.
What I needed was a longer bar, the question is

where on the island could I find a cheap solution?

I finally found what I needed in one of the local DIY stores, an 18mm threaded rod about a meter long. In order to fit the retaining ring from the original counterweight bar I would need to cut down the end of the bar in order to make a M10 thread or the other option which Helen came up with was to drill and tap a M10 hole in the end and us a M10 bolt cut down to join the two pieces together.

Below is a photographic explanation of the modification. Enjoy :

The first step was to mark the center of the bar by using a square to draw lines across

Then having worked out the center this is then punched with a centre ready for drilling

Drilling downwards with the hand drill trying carefuly to keep the drill streight. The hole is only about 1/2 inch deep.

Moveing up to a bigger drill meant moving on to a different clamping method

The Hold drilled out to 8.5mm and ready for tapping

Helen tapping the hole to M10 thread

The hole tapped and ready to take the bolt

The M10 Bolt inserted

And cut to the required length ready to take the retaning ring from the original counterweight bar

The retaning ring in place

The new counterweight bar fitted to the EQ6 pro mount

The mount fully assembled and balanced. On the whole the system works very well with the longer bar. The only down side is that after a slew it can take a secound or to for the mount to settle due to vibrations in the counterweight bar.

Tried to do some observing this night but with lots of fast moving clouds and bad seeing ( very unusal for La Palma, but the weather has been funny here for a few weeks) it was almost impossible to get aligned and when I did it was very hard to see much anyway. But it was enough to convince me that the scope and mount combination would work quite well.

Spending Spree

Well in preparation for our move to La Palma early next year we have been on a bit of a spending spree buying things that we need for our new life out there. The main items we have been buying are the things that will be very hard for us to obtain once we are there.

One of the main things that I have been getting is all the equipment that I require for my astronomical observatory which I will be setting up over there. Below are a few of the items that I have purchased so far.

10" LX200R Ritchey Chretien Telescope Tube


Sky-Watcher Pro ED80 80mm Refractor Telescope

EQ6 Pro Skyscan Equatorial Mount

Once I start to set these up and use them I will post more detailing the progress. In fact I am still waiting of the EQ6 Mount to be delivered.