SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

So with all the clouds, upon clouds, upon... you know.
I see the sky appeared to be clearing towards darkish. So I go out to a cloudless sky and balmy air, lots and lots of stars.
But of course, since a dragged everything indoors due to a 40% chance of rain, I'd have to set up in the darkish.
But the stars looked so good that I got busy and set up. The routine is getting pretty fast anymore.
Ahh, not too chilly yet, a few minor tweeks with the hand screws and home spot Polaris was shining away in the Telescopes middle circle.
I'd picked up a tip about using Stellarium to find the NCP and how Polaris is setting at the time one is aiming at it. Looked like 12:30 (00:30) high. Check.
Running through the alignment I am learning some new-to-me stars, mixed in with old reliable favorites. I normally take the time to do a 2+4 alignment anyway, to me accuracy counts, so towards the end I like seeing final stars in the procedure coming in tighter and tighter to the center.
Oddly enough, things seemed off. :? But brave fool that I am, I trudged along.
Finally, the end. At that point I will usually pick a bright star and recheck focus and do minute tweaks to see if I'm on or not. Fiddle-twiddle.
Then if I have a target, I'll order-up in Stellarium and I'm on my way. But more often I like to pick on the fly.
Suddenly the laptop's screen goes dark. :-( Kinda like it went to sleep, just dark.
OK, so my laptop's battery does not last too long if it isn't plugged in. But it was plugged in. Oh... forgot to switch on the surge protector power strip that lives out under the table of The Sleepy Dog Observatory. :oops: Duh!
No life to be found. Since the laptop is the only thing cord connected, I watch for the 4 tiny LED indicators to tell me A-OK. They weren't. Finally, I tapped the main power switch after trying the usual to bring it back to life failed.
It finally showed signs of life, and when it lit up it looked as if it hadn't lost it's brain during the time it passed out. Whew!
But it wasn't acting quite right... :?
So, the decision was made to start fresh and even do a new alignment. Sigh... the long road. Arg! :x The thought of cheating occurred to me, but why use a Last Alignment if I wasn't happy with it anyway?
So I set about running through the all familiar paces again, and finding the target stars the alignment was bringing up, but curiously enough required quite a bit of hunting to find.
Why was the mount acting so very odd, I thought.
By now it was getting cold, and the dew was settling on the equipment, and on me. It was getting miserable outside.
I couldn't seem to find my targets worth beans. Finally I decided to try good old Orion's Nebula.
Uhh, where is it? Boy, the mount sure seemed off. I adjusted it long hand in the eyepiece, and set PHD to work.
Then went into my camera program and took a shot. Humm, that didn't look right, and it seemed to be out of focus as well.
Where the heck was the Nebula?
Oh, dew! OK, I've been frittering and frattering twice as long as usual by now. There is a ghostly mist coming across the sky and the stars behind the front are getting obscured.
Since I didn't expect to be out for over 2 1/2 hours fooling around, all I had on was my heavy shirt and a sweater vest and no jacket, a calamity of comical cavorting, then getting wet and the sky closing me out... I frustratedly decided to pack it in. Arg! Damn weather! What the heck was up with the mount?
I shut down my programs and unplugged the cables. Lugged the laptop back inside and set it up to run the weather station link like normal. It was dewy. Not real wet, but I could have wrote your name in the haze. OK, up and running there, back out for the telescope, then the mount and battery cart.
Trudge, trudge, trudge.... I unplug the harness from the telescope and carefully bring it in and set it aside to acclimate and dry from the dampness. I just left it open and stretched out.
Back out for the mount... OK, wrap up the harness and bungee it nice and neat for transport, remove the... wait.
What the hell? Looked down at the Magna-Cart hand truck the battery box lives on and sure enough... there sat the counterweight quietly in the dark.
I had missed mounting the counter weight and setting it to my balance mark for the current configuration.
Crap! No wonder the mount was acting up!
Disgusted with the weather, disgusted with the cold, and disgusted with myself... I packed in the mount and battery box.

Would somebody just kick me...
I think I need a boot in the backside.
So much for setting up in the dark. So much for the 3 hour window that could have been.
Good night. Once again, the problem boils down to human error. :hunf:
:roll:

http://scrabblesense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/TOOTHLESS.jpg

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Sounds like you need to pucker-up alright Sonny.:lol: :lol:

Albuqshutterbug Loc: Albuquerque NM

As a balloon pilot I have a simple rule: If three things go wrong, stop and try another time.
It means your not concentrating or paying attention to things going on around you. 9 times out of 10 that is spot on.
Sorry you didn't get to get to the playing point but hey. Soon, very soon. Now bend over for the boot of understanding. :twisted: :twisted:

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Sunday is still predicted for clear skies here in So Cal.

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

Not if I set-up. I can garrontee. If I set up my telie-ma-scope, the skies will go to Sh-tuffins. :lol:
OK, back to Astro Tortilla... :evil: I hate trying to figure out how to get programs to work! :roll:

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Please explain what we can use this for Sonny???

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

I think more than the balloon is fulla hot air.... :lol: Yep, just completely blew by putting the weight on the rod.
I use to remove the rod and all. But thought better of it, not wanting it to wear on the threads screwing in and out all the time. So I decided the rod could stay, and just put the 11 pound weight with the battery on the hand truck.
Easier to cart around, easier to move the AVX around.

I bet I wouldn't forget it if it was in my pocket next time. :shock: Fortunately I usually learn from my mistakes.
Not always, but usually... :lol: Maybe black, in the dark, isn't a good combo for me. :roll:

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

It just takes one mistake in picking out one of the alignment stars, and game over. The mount will never complain. And it will let you go through all the calibration stars. And nothing will line up. Totally frustrating!

Also forgetting the weights is a big deal too. Been there to.
But I do keep my tablet ready to do confirmations. I have aligned using a wrong star, and it totally unnerves you for the evening.

One free application I use is called Mobile Observatory (Android). It does a really good job of putting labels on the brighter stars and drawing constellation lines. It keeps me in line and helps me pick the right stars. Once I'm aligned, I shut it down. SkyPortal and SkySafari have many more stars but don't display as many labels.

When you open Mobile Observatory, there are many options. I pick Sky View (the upper left choice). But the other choices have good stuff too.

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

I'll give it a look-see, Jim. Thanks!
I have several apps on my Smarter-than-me-phone. Sometimes I even have the presence of mind to use them... :roll:

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Sonny please tell me what the Astro Tortilla Program does???

Oknoder Loc: Western North Dakota

Astro tortilla is a plate solving program. you download a star catalog and it will tell you where your mount is pointing. I use pinpoint and it allows me to skip the whole calibration sequence altogether.

i point to where I think my subject is, take a frame and pinpoint tells me the exact ra and dec and i sync with those numbers and slew to the subject exactly, it will keep moving the mount to get me within 10 pixels of where I tell it to point which is nice for capturing the same image on different nights.

Gosh if I posted some of the idiotic mistakes I have tried to fight through I would be here all day, bravo to you for at least sharing Sonny

Matthew

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

Ditto - astrotortillia has a brain that is smarter than I.

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

Thanks Matthew.
Yep, first time I forgot my mounts counter weight. I guess I got too excited to actually see stars.
I can almost guarantee that if I set up, it'll turn to pea soup skies.

I think I am in all honesty, going to stick with what I'm doing.
Astro Tortilla seems too complicated for me. I can't even get through the set up in the damn thing.
Meanwhile, I am bumbling along OK when the clouds part.

My best views are when the dog and I go out to pee before bed. :?
The sky is always amazing without the telescope. My mount is a rainmaker. :lol:

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

It's suppose to take your camera capture, analyze the image, then guide your mount flawlessly. In a very small nutshell.

Maybe if I run onto a Youtube video, with some explicit instructions, I can manage it. But I haven't been able to get past the set up screen.
So for now, I am frustrated with it.
So Neener-neener...

Oknoder Loc: Western North Dakota

In all honesty I tried astrotortilla and could not figure it out either. Maxim has pinpoint built in which is how I learned it. Maxim only has the LE version so once I figured that out I "upgraded" it to the stand alone version which SGPro uses to find itself.