Imaging Mars near opposition
The disk is barely 17 arcseconds, the seeing is never as good as you hoped, and yet a few thousand frames still pull out Syrtis Major. What worked this season.
Why my polar alignment kept drifting
Stars trailed after twenty minutes no matter how carefully I drift-aligned. The mount was fine — the tripod was sinking into wet grass.
Aligning a finder scope without losing the evening
A daytime trick that saves the first half hour under the stars. Use a distant chimney, not a star, to get close before dark.
Testing a cheap light-pollution filter
From a red-zone backyard, does a budget broadband filter actually help? A few side-by-side frames and an honest answer.