The Observatory Dome is Built

OK so it's only 20cm diameter and made of cardboard. But it is a prototype. me and Helen made this dome yesterday afternoon to prove if the concept of making a geodesic dome from plywood sheets would work. As you can see the final result looks dome like, it is fairly ridged apart from round the lower edge but then it is held together with scotch tape. The full sized one will also have a solid band around the bottom to support it and keep it round.
If you look on the inside you can see that it is made up of a number of triangles joined together in either hexagons or pentagons the gaps between each will not be as noticeable on the final thing as the measurements will be easier to get exact due to the fact that we will be dealing with something 10 times bigger.

The next thing to do on the model is to coat it with some papermache and then once dried I will then be able to cut the hole in it for the dome opening. In the full scale version it will have a coat of fibreglass for waterproofing. Once I have used this scale model to sort out some of the idea's I would like to be able to make a start on planning to build the observatory next year.

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

The Zodiacal Light and Lasers in the Sky

A few times recently we have noticed a glow in the western sky after sunset. We had thought that it might be some light pollution coming from the main center of the village. This would not be a major problem as La Palma has very strict laws governing light pollution. So this evening we decided to go out for a drive having spotted this glow and find out where it was coming from, and to our surprise we found that the glow did not have a terrestrial source. Having read a bit I discovered that what we were seeing was what is known as the Zodiacal Light. This is the light from the sun being reflected off very small grains of dust in orbit around the Sun. It is only visible in dark non light polluted skies. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get a picture of this but I will keep an eye out and try and get one.

When we got back from our little drive around to try and find the source of the glow, as we got out of the car I looked up to the sky as I normally do and noticed something in the sky. What I saw was a straight line across the sky. This is the 25W Laser which is projected from the William Herschel Telescope to provide an artificial guide star for the adaptive optics system which allows the removal of the effects of the air turbulence which is what causes the stars to twinkle.

30sec Exposure showing Laser

2 1/2 minute Exposure showing Laser tracking stars

No Soldering Required

I was going to make a small electronic circuit called an EQMOD which would allow the computer to talk directly to the stepper motors inside the EQ6 telescope mount. However with the latest version of the firmware for the mount handset there is what they describe as a "PC Direct Mode".
This can be found in the V3.21 of the handset firmware. With this mode you can just connect the PC to the handset and then the handset to the telescope mount as normal, but use the EQMOD software which gives a major improvement over the standard controls contained within the handset.

On other news I have contacted Nick Hudson at Tru-tech about my filter wheel and he has promised to put some replacement chips in the post

Save Our Astronomy

Now you know that I don't get that political unless it is something that I really feel strongly about.
Right now I am fuming at the stupidity of the current suggested cuts to astronomy research facilities across the UK.
This has come about due to a £80millon budget shortfall in the budget for the Science and Technologies Funding Council (STFC)
Not only will this entail a 25% cut to all physics grants, but several important UK Science facilities are under threat. The most stupid is the withdrawal of the UK from the Gemini north 8Meter telescope on Hawaii this now leaves UK astronomers with out access to a large telescope in the northern hemisphere. Also the funding for most of the UK Telescopes here on La Palma looks like it will stopped as well.

Update, My friend Sheila has put it much better than I ever could on her blog here


To find out more and to find out how you can help visit the following site.

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.

The Biggest Telescope in the World

Today we managed to piggy back on a tour of the telescopes that was being given by our friend Sheila. This also included a visit to the GranTeCan which at 10.4M when complete will make it the largest optical telescope in the World.

Firstly we had a tour round the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) which is where Helen used to work about 10 years ago, it was the first time Helen had been back for a while as well. I have seen other large telescopes in the UK but nothing really prepares you for walking through a set of doors and being faced with a telescope that's over two stories high.
WHT Cassagrain instrument cluster with the ISIS specrograph and the bottom of the mirror cell, with our friend Sheila.
After a look round (not as in depth as I would like as it was a public tour) we went over to the GranTeCan. If I thought the WHT was big I was in for a shock. After putting on hard hats as this is technically still a building site, We walked up several flights of stairs just to get to the floor of the Telescope. As we came out into the dome my jaw just hit the floor. This thing was huge. The base of the telescope could almost hold a tennis court between the supporting legs.
Theresa looking at the base of the GranTeCan.

The base of the mirror supports is three stories high with the overall hight being almost twice that. The most spooky thing was as they rotated the telescope which weighs over 500tons there wasn't a single sound, the whole thing floats on a bed of high pressure oil and is rotated by a linear motor which runs completely round the base.

M51 First light casa de Estrellas

After many weeks of cloudy nights and just being plain tired I finally had a clear night when I was able to get the telescope out. So having got the telescope out on the roof, While I got the laptop up and running, Helen sorted out the polar alignment of the mount. Once it got dark I started to align the mount, then took a look at Saturn which unfortunately to low to attempt any imaging. So having lost Saturn in the haze close to the ground I swung the scope over to Jupiter which was fairly high in the sky. Having had a good look with my eyes, it was time for me to do something which I have been itching to do for quite a while I finally got the camera out and took some shots of Jupiter. I was amazed at how easy it was to get the thing to focus and having the target stably in view. I always used to struggle on my old scope and mount to keep even large objects in view. I have yet to process the images of Jupiter. But having been able to get a few good minutes of Jupiter I though I would give things a good test. So I slewed the scope round to M51 and once I had it located I took a set of 10 exposures each of 60 Sec. The following day looking at the images I though hmm these aren't that good, there was a lot of noise in then image, then I subtracted a dark frame which is an image taken with the cover over the scope so it will just capture the camera noise. Having done this I was blown away there was the classic double spiral of M51. Here is the result after stacking 4 of the images and Helen adjusting levels in Photoshop.

M51 Stacked image from 5 60 second unguided exposures. Mount: EQ6, Scope: Skywatcher ED80, Camera: Meade DSI Pro, Filter: IR block.
Taken: 17 July 2007 00:00 (Yes Midnight) First Photographic deep sky image from Casa de Estrellas, Canary Islands

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.