Homeless Observatory

I thought it might be fun to share three photos of my current homeless observatory or should I say Observatoryless Home? The snow has forced me to setup in the front yard just off the path. I haven't noticed much issue from the street lights and cars. But I'm not very discerning at this stage. It takes me a million years and almost getting frostbite to get aligned and calibrated. I'm still slow at all this and make many mistakes. Last night it took me an hour to realize my tripod wasn't even close to level. I must have looked at the bubble level from a weird angle.

I cleared some additional snow away this weekend after finding myself in the snow bank trying to align with stars in the west.

~ Charlie

Attached Image:

#2

Attached Image:

Charles,

Your home observatory looks very similar to mine, except that I don't have snow on my floor. Once the snow melts, you may find it useful to find a slightly different location that has concrete and drill some dents in the concrete that you can set the tips of your tripod legs in. That way you'll set up the same way every time and can be polar aligned, too. Probably not good enough for photography, but certainly good enough for visual.

Very Nice, Charles. We had some melting today here in SE, CT, but a bit more of "something" expected tonight. I have a cement pier in the back yard, but haven't risked bringing any equipment out on the ice in many weeks. You're a brave guy taking all that nice equipment out in this frigid mess.

George