Hualapai Valley Observatory

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Weather Conditions

The Hualapai Valley Observatory is named after the valley it is located in (the Hualapai Valley). It is located in northwestern Arizona approx 22 miles north of Kingman and about 40 miles south of Meadview. It is a private dark sky site for astronomical observations and, based on the Bortle Dark-Sky Scale, is located in an area that can be classified somewhere between a 2 and a 3. Some minor skyglow from the lights of Las Vegas can be seen on the northeast horizon up to about 10 degrees and even less of a skyglow on the southern horizon from Kingman.

Great skies, bad alignment

August 12, 2010 @ 06:38 PST

Not a great night. The skies were clear enough, but I had all sorts of issues with guiding. It all seems to come down to the polar alignment. Each time I change out equipment I have to re-balance, and that seems to throw the polar alignment off. I need to figure out a better way. Anyway, I only had a few hours of actual imaging time, so I split it up into to "trial" targets to see what they might look like. The first one is NGC-891 (an edge-on unbarred spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda). The second one is NGC-7023 (the Iris Nebula, a bright reflection nebula in the constellation Cepheus).

The images here did not turn out very well, but that is due to the number of sub images for each one (2 ea L, R, G, B @ 5min). They both deserve a lot more integration time, and I will probable got back to The Iris Nebula tonight.

Want some Hydrogen Alpha with those photons?

August 11, 2010 @ 06:55 PST

Got some Ha images to go with the RGB image last night. This one was taken with the CCD camera. This represents 38 subs @ 10min each. I really like the result so far.

Full Size Image (>2 MB)

Moonless Nights / Clear Skys

August 10, 2010 @ 15:10 PST

I was finally able to get some good weather and a moonless night, so have started taking images. I plan on taking a few widefield images using the AT66 refractor and the DSLR, and some with the long focal length of the 8" SCT. The *" is a bit tough becuase I have to use an off axis guider and the small field of view makes it a bit hard with the autoguider.

Here is a shot of NGC700 (the North American Nebula) with the AT66. This totals about 5 hrs of image time (60 - 5min subs). I want to try to get some Ha images as well.

Full Size Image (>10 MB)

Observatory (mostly) Complete & Operational

July 14, 2010 @ 16:33 PST

The observatory was completed (mostly) and is fully operational. Here is the first light photo I took. Still have some adjustments to make to the telescope and the alignment, but it looks good. Hopefuly the weather will allow me to use the setup some time soon. When the moon was bright and full there were no clouds and the nightly temperature was in the 60's. Within a week (during the last new moon) the clouds have rolled in and teh temperature is HOT .. 100's during the day, and 80's at night. :(

Full Size Image (>1 MB)

Observatory Construction

Jan 16, 2010 @ 13:43 PST

I am in the process of constructing a 16' x 24' observatory at this location that will contain two permanent telescope piers and a climate controlled control room. It will take awhile to complete, but it will give me the opportunity to get some very long exposure images of some great astronomical objects. You can follow the progress here.