On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
After returning from my hike up the North Fork of Big Pine Creek, I decided to stay at home and concentrate on fixing a long standing problem with my star tracker. I was getting star trails and my polar alignment was perfect. I removed my iPolar(a little camera that fits in my polar scope part of the tracker, connects to a computer and will polar align the mount) when the USB cable broke and didn’t realize at the time I needed to recalibrate it. I recalibrated it and I got much better tracking and continued to try to optimize that.
At the same time, I noticed that one of the tires on the Prius had a slow leak, so any distant treks were out until I could get that fixed. In early December, I was out in my yard shooting and the battery on my camera went dead during the shoot as well as the tracker. I went inside to plug in the tracker and the USB charging cable went into the hole and didn’t connect to anything.; moving the tracker, I heard something moving around inside. I took the tracker apart and the USB connector had fallen off the logic board. I now had no way to charge the tracker’s battery, so I had a brick.
My plans for 2024 included upgrading my mount to a Goto style mount and I had been looking primarily at the SkyWatcher Star Adventurer GTI. Suddenly my timeline was accelerated, I looked at the Star Adventurer azGTI but decided that the SA GTI was the better choice. When the price on Amazon dropped a week prior to Christmas, I ordered the mount. I used it for about a month and decided that I needed a better method of polar alignment, so I also got a mini computer to control the whole image acquisition process as well as a power bank to power everything.
The Orion nebula(M42) and the Running Man nebula shot using the old star tracker. This is a really easy target to shoot since you can actually see it even in light polluted skies.
More than anything else, taking this shot convinced me that I needed to get a mount with Goto capabilities. I spent an hour trying to find this nebula. Photographers that have been shooting astro photographs for a long time advise new photographers to star hop to find their target. Due to the light pollution here in Glendale there are very few stars that a visible anywhere near this nebula, so it is point the camera, shoot and see if any of the star patterns look familiar in a planetarium application.
My old star tracker in pieces. The USB port is supposed to be just to the right of the red LED for the polar scope at the bottom.
The new mount. The blue light in the rock bag in the middle of the tripod is the mini computer.
First light with the new mount of the Orion and Running Man nebula. It is a well known fact in Astrophotography that after you get any new gear, you are guaranteed to have 3 weeks of cloudy nights.
Once properly polar and star aligned, the mount would accurately goto the target I’d specify. No more hunting for stars I couldn’t see. This is the Rosette nebula, one hour of exposure time.
These galaxies are known as the Leo Triplet composed of M65, M66, and the Hamburger galaxy. These galaxies are the first that I’ve shot that are not in our local group of galaxies(the Milky Way, Andromeda, and Triangulum) and are about 30 million light years away from us. I was quite surprised that I was able to capture them and really couldn’t see that I had until I stacked all the sub exposures and started processing the shot.
This is the small computer that I use to control the mount and camera. It is a Windows 11 computer that runs a suit of open source software that controls the acquisition of source images. Once I am polar aligned, I do not have to go out and do anything, I can monitor the process from a remote computer. I named it Astro.
A screen shot of the brains of the operation, N.I.N.A.(Nighttime Imaging ‘N Astronomy). In this screen shot I’ve framed the California nebula and told NINA that I want a two part mosaic. I specify how many shots I want to take and the duration and NINA will shoot the first half and then the second. This approach can also work for wide field panoramas like a Milky Way arch photo.
Baud
No one wants to work anymore.
With new disasters come new opportunities. Awesome all around.
lowtechcyclist
Slow leak? Keep one of these in your car:
https://www.zoro.com/genuine-victor-tire-inflator-bellaire-500-30500-8/i/G506737377/
I got one of these several years ago, and it’s been great. You can use it to pump up your tires in your driveway or wherever you happen to be. It plugs into the not-a-cigarette-lighter in your car, so it runs off the car’s electrical system.
I bought mine at the local Ace Hardware, and there were similar gadgets there sold by competing brands; this is just the one I happened to pick that day.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I’m still working on stuff, I just don’t have to be out in the elements. Dees ol’ bones can’t take that anymore.
@lowtechcyclist: Yeah, since I travel out in the boonies, I already had one of those, but also got another that works with my Ryobi batteries that I use here at home
ETA: I’m not going to be able to hang out much longer…I had a very long day at the store, was the only one in my group for 7 1/2 of my 8 hour shift.
Princess
Wow!
OzarkHillbilly
Congrats Bill. I envision many sleepless nights in your future.
Oh yeah, nice pics too. ;-)
JPL
Oh no! I’m glad to see that you are okay. Is it still raining. Have fun at the big box.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Princess: Thanks.
@OzarkHillbilly: Sleep is overrated, though I need to get some soon. Today is my Friday and it has been a rough past two days.
@JPL: We had a good amount of rain today, but it cleared up about midnight when I left work. We had light rain about an hour ago and should get some heavier rain this afternoon. It rained a lot, but I’ve seen worse(jan-Feb 1969).
stinger
So happy to see star photos!
Alison Rose
Wow, dude, these are amazing!
aaron
try taking the mount with the broken off usb port to a cell phone or computer repair store. they do board soldering like that.
Albatrossity
So true about the cloudy skies when you get new gear. True for astrophotography and bird photography!
TheronWare
Wow 😯, those are some magazine worthy images!
cope
What a great look behind the scenes, thanks. I’ve dabbled in astrophotography, mostly when I was still teaching and could get the district to purchase telescopes, motor drives and cameras for me to use for class. Sadly, all that equipment is probably gathering dust in some dark closet since I retired in ’17.
Anyway, cool pictures and sausage making story, thanks again.
BigJimSlade
Very nice!
Some years ago I tried taking some simple 30 second exposures at Joshua Tree, and I was like, damn, it’s cold out here, and hard to see what I’m doing and I don’t want to take my gloves off to change any camera settings… This was with no special equipment – my micro 4/3 camera on a gorilla pod on top of my prius. So I haven’t taken to astrophotography yet, lol – I’ll leave that to guys like you :-)
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@stinger: Happy to able to shoot them agian.
@Alison Rose: Thanks much.
@aaron: I was thinking of getting a soldering iron with a fine tip and some wick, but that might be an idea.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Albatrossity: Yup, it is an iron law in astro. Saturday night would be good here, but my work schedule makes it difficult.
@TheronWare: Thanks, I need darker skies and more shooting time.
@cope: Glad you enjoyed it, I hoped to not get too in the weeds on it.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@BigJimSlade: Thanks, right now I’m still getting used to the new setup. I shot in the Owens Valley in December of 2022 after I got the A7iv. I started off the night at a balmy 17 degrees and ended the night at 14 degrees. A few months later I shot a Winter Milky Way panorama at the same location and it was around freezing. So I’d set the camera up for one set of shots, then go to the car to warm up for 15 minutes, then back out to move the camera to the next position, rinse and repeat about 9 times.
If anyone wants to dabble in this hobby(deep space) there are a couple of interesting smart telescopes(Seestar S50 and Dwarf II) that both go for about $500.
Ruckus
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA:
I did electronics in the Navy and built a 5 tube radio about a zillion years ago, a good soldering pen is what you need because a soldering gun is too hot for the surroundings of most things today. I tried the orange store website and for me it doesn’t work. But if you don’t know what I’m talking about their major opponent – starts with an L has a Weller 30 watt for $25 and change. That’s what you need for modern light soldering and there are more powerful ones as well. McMaster Carr also sells a wide variety.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: I can see the stock that the Orange Place has(Aisle 22, bay 23), pretty much the same price as Blowes.