The dirt/sand surfaces found in many remote locations can make leveling an impossible task, or worse yet could cause your rig to slowly settle as you’re imaging regardless of if you walk close by or not.  To prevent such a thing from happening, you’re going to have to set your tripod legs on some sort of load spreading accessory.  Many companies make anti-vibration pads that would do the job but they can cost upwards of $100.  If you don’t want to spend money buying pre-made pads, your choices are to either deal with the sand, make your own pads or find some sort of suitable alternative.

This author decided that the easiest thing to do was to find some sort of suitable alternative.  A quick field trip to the local home improvement store proved to be the right choice.  It only took walking up and down a couple of aisles to find the perfect solution, banister rail caps.  They were the right size, light weight and the right price, $2.99 a piece x 3.

They came in handy during the last MBS astro trip out to Joshua Tree where it was sandy.  The tripod stayed in place without any slippage or sinkage and resulted in two successful nights of imaging.  Setting up was a lot easier this time around than the last trip to this same site.  This hobby, like many others tends to get quite expensive so any opportunity to save money is beneficial.  Sometimes it just requires a little bit of creativity!

Each subsequent frame started to slowly degrade from the edges in.  Nebulosity started showing where it shouldn’t be and stars were starting to diffract every which way just like the unprocessed shot to the left.

Since this was something I had never seen before, I kept taking a couple more shots until the last shot clearly showed the culprit…FROST!  It was like looking through a window in the dead of winter with the center of the frame still fairly clear but with crystal like spider veins on the edge of the frame.

M42 Frost, -5C

Well, for frost to form, two things need to be present.  A surface at or below freezing, and moisture.  Now, what could I do about the moisture?  Nothing at all.  I could do something with the temperature level of the CCD Chips though.  I was running at -5 degrees Celsius, so I decided to raise it to 0 degrees Celsius.  I know what you’re gonna ask, 0 degrees is still freezing so why not go to 5 degrees?  Well, the chip itself is at 0 degrees at the back surface but the front surface is just slightly warmer due to it being exposed to the air inside the camera body.

After letting it warm up for about 30 minutes, I started taking shots again and could clearly see a difference.  Most of the frost had melted and is evident in the stars at the left, bottom and right edges.  M42 itself is a bit sharper and the nebulosity isn’t artificially enhanced.  What is also evident is the amount of noise from the increase in temperature.  Eventually all of the frost disappeared and the rest of the shots I got that night were usable.

M42 Less Frost, 0C

After I got home, I immediately read over the manual and followed the direction on how to recharge the built in desiccant.  Fortunately SBIG’s design of the ST2000-XCM desiccant plug is very simple.  It simply screws out of the body, replace it with a dummy plug to prevent anything from getting in the camera and recharge it following the recommended procedure.

This happened almost after a year of use and in the fall, right after our monsoon season which makes sense since it was so humid.  So here are a few tips to follow to minimize the chance of your CCD Chip frosting over.

1. Store your camera in a cool, dry place
2. Throw a pack of silica gel or other type of desiccant inside your camera case when not in use
3. Recharge your desiccant plug (if applicable) on recommended intervals or before big imaging trips
4. If frost forms during an imaging session, set the temperature regulation to 0 degrees C or above

SBIG Desiccant Plug

Dummy Plug

Every year, Team MBS participates in a couple dozen outreaches in the Southern Orange County area but this was the first ever joint venture outreach with members from the Orange County Astronomers, Riverside Astronomical Society and the Big Bear Valley Astronomical Society.  Fortunately, this was neutral territory so no OCA/RAS/BBVAS gang wars ensued with the use of our green pointing lasers.  Leading the way was John Day from the BBVAS, who brought along his home made Dobsonian.  John won an award at RTMC for this scope (the white one) which can be seen in the picture to the left.  He also kicked off each viewing session with an exciting presentation!

Each week there was a new group of 90 excited kids waiting to check out the night sky.  Saturn was a big hit, along with globular clusters and double stars.  We were able to see a lot of constellations with the naked eye, as well as the milky way and even some meteors which drew a lot of oohs and ahhs.  The International Space Station flew over us on the 6th towards the end of the viewing session.

July 20th was the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon.  In addition to the scopes, there was a meteorite presentation and exhibit, and even some prizes were given away for those that stuck around to learn more about astronomy.  Usually, most groups get excited when binoculars are given away as prizes but this group (both kids and adults alike) went absolutely wild for the half eaten bag of frosted animal crackers…maybe it was the thin air.