Observing night June 6, 2024

We had finally a clear night in Belgium, so it was the perfect opportunity to take the telescope outside and enjoy some stargazing.  I was able to test the eFinder again after upgrading from a Raspberry Pi 4 to a Raspberry Pi 5, and it worked as expected. After an easy initial alignment on the North Star, the telescope needed to be moved to two random locations in the sky. The eFinder performed a plate solve to determine the exact position of the telescope and used this information to align the Nexus DSC Pro.

When performing a GoTo to a new object, the accuracy was already quite good due to the precise alignment. After the GoTo, the eFinder conducted another plate solve and sent a command to the Nexus DSC Pro to center the object perfectly in the eyepiece. I used a tablet with SkySafari to jump from one object to another. The only action required after a GoTo in SkySafari was a long press on the eFinder button.

I suspect there is still an issue with the ServoCAT, as the numbers on the Nexus DSC Pro gradually drift away from the 0.0 position. I will investigate this further later.

I was able to observe some spectacular summer objects:

• M 57
• M 71
• NGC 6960
• M 56
• M 92
• M 13
• M 82
• M 81
• M 51

The temperature dropped from 10°C to 8.3°C, while the humidity increased from 84% to 90%.

Temperature and humidity during the observing run.