Winter Break Begins
The first Arctic blast of the winter has arrived and it's time to shut down imaging until spring. I've sent my Losmandy Gemini II off for its Level 6 factory upgrade, packed up all the optical gear and put it in the driest part of the house for winter storage, and have discharged all my lithium batteries to about 50% of capacity. The latter is for optimal battery health during several months of non-use. They'll get a recharge and second draining around February, and then get a full charge whenever spring decides to happen.
This treatment regimen includes the smaller LiFePo4 batteries that I'll probably haul up to the 2025 Northern Nights Star Fest for swapping/selling.
The endless mosaic
Getting back into spectroscopy
My last activity of autumn was assessing the use of my AT65 astrograph for spectroscopy. I'm really unsure about using an astrograph for this purpose, as I'm concerned that putting the grating so close to the OTA's internal correctors will lead to smearing of the spectrum. Little did I know this was going to turn into a multi-night struggle as the mount and focuser had issues. Fortunately there were a few clear nights for fiddling with the focuser before the weather got too cold for me.
I had already adapted my old Pegasus FocusCube 2 to my AT65's focuser, but I had done it incorrectly. I had attached it to the fine-focus shaft. This led to absurdly fine focusing precision--and sometimes demanded too much torque from the FC2 causing it to seize. Putting it onto the coarse focus shaft solved the torque issue, and made it possible to rack out a couple of centimeters without having to wait half an hour.
Whether the change results in focusing that's precise enough to match manual focusing is something that won't be resolved until the spring. That's also when I'll configure it for backlash and autofocusing.
Maybe this is why the AT65 never appeared on the FocusCube compatibility list?
Stay warm everyone! Happy Holidays!
