It is snowing and raining today, and I believe I’ve had enough. If we do somehow come into ownership of Greenland, or even France, I may relocate. Here it snows overnight, rains in the afternoon, then the temperature drops well below freezing. It takes thirty seconds to slip and slide down the driveway to the mailbox, but several hours of black and blue accumulating tumbling to return.

The big news is that ICE is coming to Portland and Lewiston Maine. Our governor and secretary of state are publicly and frequently warning all of their constituents to hide, as they might be apprehended, churned into dog chow and shipped off the Canada with its new Communist Chinese regime. I may not be exactly correct on those “facts”. The mayor and police chief of Portland, ME were about to make a similar announcement, when they realized they live in Maine, residents do not agree with their ideology, and thought a town hall delivery might not be safe.

I suspect, based on our wacky radical left state politicians, there will be an ICE protest; three imported communists with signs, and videos of our misguided politicians looking to their brothers in MN, or MA, or NY for support. Maine is too cold to bring in a full Soros/Antifa performance. There will be no spectators, as Mainers are busy working to pay their exorbitant taxes. Taxes that go to the support of our foreign national population. Fortunately, I am old so I don’t care. The meek shall inherit a geographic and demographic dumpster fire.

Moving right along…

The research for an avocation, one that would offer personal challenges and provide some fodder for the Tenny hill website…blog… page has been concluded. Candidates were: 3D printing, 3D CAD wood routing, 3D/4D CAD metal milling, photography/astrophotography.

3D printing lacked inspiration, and was not all that useful within the boundaries of my life. With one machine already collecting basement dust, and CAD software too tedious to forecast proficiency, prospects were dim. Besides, the last foray into 3D printing satisfied my quota for gears without mates and action figures derived from movies I’ve never seen. I enjoyed the time spent learning about such things, but not enough to step up with a significant capital investment for more sophisticated equipment, or make that commitment of time

CAD/CAM equipment, wood or metal working, required personal interrogation. I know me, I get interested in a technology based endeavor, take a cursory look at the basics, then buy gear until I am surrounded with faux badges of my intellect. Then I get bored after skimming through quick start manuals, and begin a slightly used equipment sell off on eBay, each marked “Priced to sell !!”.

Ultimately, all of the above are geared for repetitive production, which is of no interest to me. Makers of this equipment, along with consumable supplies, market their goods by convincing people, with too much time on their hands, that they can make $ millions in their spare time. Mostly by buying their products and producing gears with no mates and action figures from movies they have never seen. Yes, a long run on sentence but, in my defense, I did pepper it with commas with some even properly applied.

Why? Why? Why?

I have an hour and one half daily workout routine that actually happens only four days each week. If I do any less, an arm or a leg will fall off and I will have to reduce my caloric intake so I don’t gain weight. Every day, I also try to learn something new. If I don’t, my brain will turn to soapsuds, I will forget to exercise, my a leg will fall off and I will surely eat in excess.

My photography gear is pretty well sorted, but the telescope and associated gear are not. So I dragged out the telescope and associated accessories, dumped it all out on the floor and started going through them. The theory was that I would find something that looked familiar after nearly a decade of dormancy.

In doing so, I remembered why I set astronomy aside. Other than the powered equatorial mount, and a hand controller to locate celestial bodies, everything is manual; setting up prime focus or eyepiece projection, exposure settings, polar alignment, guide compensating for earth’s rotation, processing images. Additionally, hauling the 150 lb rig to a viewing location and setting up is even less fun than one might anticipate.

I mastered little of the process. Even with acceptable images recorded, I still needed to carry around cheat sheets for configurations and calculations. If I made a change that resulted in a misplaced planet or the sun, it sometimes took a week to find it. Even when I could look up and see it with the naked eye. One moment I would be imaging a solar eclipse in progress, the next there would be sunspots in the silhouette that looked a lot like a backyard tree. Even a full moon would just hang in the evening sky and mock me. Jupiter and Saturn, not so much.

The culprit

The telescope was primarily used for visual planetary observation and star gazing with its equatorial mount. However, it was also set up for infrequent manual planetary photography with a DSLR camera attached.  While the powered mount strips all intuition from the process, it does offer the potential for expansive improvement in the hands of a skilled astrophotographer. I am not sure how much of that potential can be harnessed by a novice. That would be me.

After sorting through everything, it became apparent that the cost of integrating auto guide, camera and remote control, was significant and the energy to tackle the mountainous learning curve was lacking. So I prepared a list of questions and headed for the Celestron site, two well established retailers specializing in astronomy gear, and one very good astronomy forum.

It turns out that Celestron made major mount motor, controller and hand controller changes in the transition from my telescope mount, the Advanced GT, to the redesigned  VX series. While firmware was available for both, the revisions stopped 10 years ago for the GT, but went on with the VX. I could plug a VX hand control into my GT, but it would only provide the same functions as my early hand control. It would not add the VX extended functions to the GT mount.

Post Celestron Advanced GT mounts are designed with Astronomy Common Object Model (ASCOM) API compliance. An interface standard that allows cross brand communications amongst mounts, cameras, focusers, etc.. ASCOM drivers for these devices are available for free, however, the Advanced GT mount is not ASCOM compliant and will not correctly respond to standard commands from other devices. Not even current Celestron devices, like the StarSense and GPS, are compatible with the GT mount.

Yes. I did get a different answers from all resources referenced. All polite and all thorough in suggestions. Celestron stated the mount was not compatible with neither Celestron nor other brand system enhancements. Unequivocally, they said the mount motor firmware had no updates as the board design had changed with the new VX motor layout. The newer Series 5 hand controller would work as the original, but adds no functionality. Testing components on my mount proved this to be true. Celestron did not try to up sell me in new gear. They suggested the earlier system I have is excellent, and that they would be glad to help if and when I got stuck while trying to master the equipment.

The astronomy forum people thought the mount and hand control could be updated and would work with non-Celestron enhanced peripherals. They were generous with information, but the suggestions as to how to bring the mount into ASCOM compliance to integrate were non specific, and candidly stated as assumptions. The links provided did not lead to a solution. The retailers said “no go”, but were kind enough to list $5,000 worth of add ons to follow $2,600 for a new mount. So I am guessing amateur astronomers are all wealthy dilettantes or software programmers.

The only related purchase I made was to replace the factory 6×30 finder scope with a Celestron 9x50mm Right Angle Correct Image finder scope. The factory piece shows the image inverted and backwards, which has always driven me crazy when trying to locate a target.

The challenge as I see it

The Celectron 8″ SCT telescope is in excellent condition, as is the mount, even if lacking in more current automation. So the choices are learning how to properly utilize the gear as it stands, or spending a substantial amount of money on a new mount, plus all of the current automation devices. Since the cost is well outside the budget constraints for this project… there’s an understatement, I guess I will have to learn astrophotography without a computer doing it all for me. Yikes. More to follow.