No way to get much stargazing in these days with all the clouds. I hear that Chi Cygni has really brightened up, hopefully I will get enough of a clearing in the clouds to check that out - there should be two bright stars in the neck of the swan now instead of one.
I have been doing some equipment work lately though. This picture is of a project I worked on tonight, installing a RoboFocus unit on a 66mm refractor. The RoboFocus unit is really cool, it basically allows you to focus the scope in very fine increments, controlled via computer. Using some freeware called FocusMax and a CCD camera, the scope can be focused to high precision. That's very important for imaging.
It requires a little bit of work and creativity to install a RoboFocus unit, and I suppose the scope is not quite as pretty afterwards, but I put one of these on my other refractor a few weeks ago and had a chance to use it, and it made a huge difference. I'm planning to piggyback this small scope on other scopes so I'll need the fine focus capability for it as well, and fortunately the company sells extra motors so you can put one on each scope.
We are in a fortunate time with so many automated accessories and computerized add-ons. But it's important not to lose the thrill that only a personal involvement with the heavens can bring.
By the way I must also mention that the back page of the September issue of Astronomy magazine shows a photo taken by a good friend of mine, who I consider to be a mentor when it comes to CCD imaging, Dean Salman. Dean's been helping me get up to speed, in fact he assisted me with setting up the RoboFocus for my other refractor. He's a skilled astrophotographer and certainly deserved the honor of having his image of Sharpless 2-216 earn the "Photo Journeys" spread. Check it out on page 96.
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