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| Indoor Celestron 14" EdgeHD CGX-L telescope lunar imaging through an opened deck door. The Moon is seen up about 45 degrees elevation in the sky, and left of the OTA |
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| Moon by Humanoido, imaged Thursday, March 21, 2019 at 8:05 pm local time. EdgeHD 14" telescope, Celestron FR, stock 23mm 2" EP and star diagonal, hand held Apple iPhone Xs MAX, imaged indoors, single image, processed with Photo, corrected for EP achromatic aberration, air pollution, and light pollution. |
Singularity Observatory
Successful Indoor Lunar Observing
with a Big Telescope
by Humanoido
Breaking News
Thursday March 21st 2019
I was surprised the immense massive and heavy Celestron 14-inch EdgeHD CGX-L telescope fit inside the home fully assembled, with three counterweights and castors on the feet to provide more resting surface area so as not to crack or mar the ceramic floor. The EdgeHD 14-inch is the largest telescope manufactured by Celestron Company and also the most expensive. It's important to get full use from this telescope with as many convenient observing programs as possible, even if the telescope must sometimes remain indoors for work on both day and night programs. During the day, the scope observes the forest jungle for wildlife conservation studies and runs experiments in optics and telescope dynamics. The telescope is also useful for tracking SPACE1's rocket launches and various space missions.
The top of the OTA just cleared the ceiling by about 2-inches, certainly a stroke of luck. The telescope room has a lowered ceiling to make space for a sleeping loft. Just a few days earlier a plan was outlined for operating the telescope from indoors while peering through the opened deck door.
https://space1usa.blogspot.com/2019/03/space1-singularity-observatory_20.html
This was a quick experimental setup because the entire day was heavy overcast, and suddenly shortly after lunar rise time the haze began to dissipate and it was time to scramble to get set up with the new telescope and accessories. First off, the door was opened to the outside for an hour to achieve thermal equilibrium. The heat was on in the 85 deg. F. weather. Humidity was pushing 96%. The image of the Moon barely fit into the telescope's FOV after a Celestron FR was attached to get around f/7. The OTA needed precise positioning so at not to engulf the door frame. Only one photo was lucky enough to capture the entire Moon because the Moon was framed right up to the edged of the EP. The camera used is an iPhone Xs MAX in auto exposure mode, hand held in front of the EP (a very taxing and difficult process) for the afocal method of projection with a supplied Celestron 23mm 2-inch. No drive was running at the time and the telescope was moved by hand. The polar axis was only rough aligned with a compass. Images were shot through clouds, haze, strong air/light pollution. As the hour progressed, the telescope protruded into the door frame and obstructed the images.
This provides a lot of wiggle room for the future to obtain much higher resolution results. A portable smart phone mount is on order for the bionic phone, higher quality EPs, two FRs without field correction, and soon the CCD imager system will be setup with the computer along with the drive cabled to power the mount at the exact computed lunar rate. One thing noticed is the sky opening covers the exact area where the Moon passes by frequently in the springtime and is the same area where the planet Mars hovered during the 2018 opposition, and more recently Venus made an appearance. The sky-view has a peak elevation around 45 degrees facing East Southeast. The area could also catch Jupiter, Saturn and other objects with the correct timing.
