Philae gets "Green Light" for comet landing

The decision to try to land a robot on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 12 November has been confirmed.

Last month, planners on Europe's Rosetta mission announced a preference for a touch-down location on the head of the icy, rubber-duck-shaped object.

A detailed follow-up analysis, informed by new high-resolution pictures, has found no reason to rescind the choice.

Details of this exciting encounter can be found HERE.

Hypertune Success

The tune-up of my telescope mount was a success.  Both axes now operate "silky" smooth and the backlash is gone!  Now all I have to do is wait for the skies to clear.  Prospects for the total eclipse of the moon is about 20% chance of clear skies.

Total Lunar Eclipse - Wednesday Oct 8, 2014

If you are up early on Wednesday morning and have a clear sky to the western horizon you might want to take a glimpse of the 2nd total eclipse of the moon of four due in 2014/2015.

Astronomy magazine has the details.

Hypertune of mount

After a number of attempts to resolve a problem with guiding, I determined that some severe backlash in the DEC axis and some moderate backlash in the RA axis is probably the cause. Although gear mesh adjustment would help resolve the issue I decided to do a complete overhaul of the mount by performing the HyperTune procedure from Deep Space Products.

This service is provided by DSP but they also provide a DIY kit, and I didn't want to wait the 4 weeks for the turnaround. So I ordered the kit earlier this week and spent all day yesterday doing the tune up. Here is a before image and the disassembled mount.

After the rebuild was complete I set up the mount on the pad and made some final mechanical adjustments. The axes are now silky smooth and the backlash in both axes seems almost non-existent. However, the proof is yet to come when I test the mount later this evening with the OTA attached. Now I just need the skies to cooperate.