DeepskyWim

For the period around the new moon in May 2020, a few nights of nice weather were predicted.  My ServoCAT arrived on May 15, but I did not had the time to install everything yet.  I used the new, larger battery which will be used by the ServoCAT .  On the night of May 15 - 16, I planned to observe, but when I started, I had a terrible pain in my toe.  Because I could not really concentrate, I did not observe that night. On May 17 - 18, I mostly enjoyed some showpieces: the globulars are really amazing in a larger telescope.  I really enjoyed some nice galaxies too. On May 19 - 20, I saw the ISS pass over when I started observing. A glowworm sat in the grass next to me. I observed again some showpieces, and had a very sharp view of the globulars (really pinpoint stars!).  I could observe the supernova in M 61. This night, I measured the best SQM I have ever measured in Roosbeek: 20.31. On May 20 - 21, I saw again the ISS.  There was some high cirrus, so I did not observe.  Apparently,

Today, the replacement motor for my  Tom Osypowski equatorial platform  arrived today.  It was an easy fix to remove the old (broken) motor, and install the new one, once I could find the correct (American) screwdrivers.  After a small test, everything seems to work fine again. I will install the 35 cm Dobsonian on the equatorial platform, but the groundboard is not large enough to fit on the platform, so I need to do some changes first... I will also add digital setting circles (encoders) to be able to use the Argo Navis on the 35cm Dobsonian. The 18'' Obsession will be updated with a  ServoCAT .  This will update the telescope to a full goto system.  Because the equatorial platform is removed from the Obsession, the height of the telescope decreased with 30cm, which makes a huge difference on such a large telescope. The replacement motor for the equatorial platform. The installed motor for the equatorial platform

During the observations I did last week, I saw that there were some black spots on my mirror.  So today, I put my mirror in the shower and cleaned it. I started rinsing the mirror with normal water.  I was happy that I could already see that most of the black spots disappeared. The second step was to add one drop of a cleaning product.  I then cleaned the mirror with cottonwood, by applying little pressure.  I finished by rinsing the mirror with demineralised water.  A very successful action, because the mirror looks again like new. The mirror with the black spots (if you really look carefully).