I’ve had some telescope mount troubles so I’ve been doing my astronomy from my back yard rather than from my observatory. It has its pros and cons. The obvious con is that the light pollution sucks, big time. The other big one is that I need to set up and tear down every night. There are some nice upsides, though. Last night I got set up, started taking some data on Mark 421, gave the boy a bath, switched to W Com, played some World of Warcraft. Went over to GSC 3047-176, went to bed, slept for 3 hours, got up, tore things down and went back to bed.

 

By contrast, when I work at my observatory it takes me 45-60 minutes to get there, depending on traffic. From when I leave my house until I’m getting data is about 90 minutes. Once there, in the dome, there are a lot of pros. The skies are much darker, there is less dew and less wind in the dome. Everything is set up all the time, so I walk in, turn it on, and start slewing to my first object of the night. Tear down is equally non-existent, taking only a few minutes to pack up my laptop and go. It is less comfortable at my observatory while the data is clicking away. I have a little out building where I light a fire in the stove and sit at a desk with my computer. That is not unpleasant at all. In the summer I sit in my observatory. Sometimes I crash in a sleeping bag in the observatory for a few hours. The drive home doesn’t suck as much as you think it would. It’s a quick trip at 4 in the morning.

 

The solution, though, is obvious! I am now in a situation where I can almost have a rig at home and a rig at the observatory. This would also allow me to run two rigs at the same time at my observatory, one inside and one outside. That might be fun sometimes, too.