A new chapter
in
The history of Land of Oz Observatory
 

January 17, 2025: Because I needed to spend more time caring for my wife, I closed down the rural site in Linn County, Kansas, and re-located Land of Oz Observatory to my suburban backyard in Lee's Summit, Missouri. Due to the fact that I would no longer be imaging under 21.5 magnitude skies, I decided to retire the C-11 and image in the future with a smaller, high precision Apochromatic refractor. This would also make the set-up and tear-down easier. I have a 3-season room adjoining my patio, and this would become my new "control room" when running the imaging rig out on the patio.

My new imaging setup consists of an Astro-Tech AT-92 92mm f/5.5 Apochromatic triplet refractor with a native focal length of 506mm. Interestingly, this was the same focal length I was imaging at when using the C-11 with Starizona HyperStar setup. With the AT-92 I am using a Stellarvue SFFX-1  1 X field flattener. The imaging camera is the ZWO ASI 2600MC Pro APS format camera which I used with the C-11. At 506mm FL, this yields a field of 2.6 X 1.7 degrees, and a resolution of 1.53 arc seconds per pixel.

Guiding is via a Stellarvue F050G 50mm guide scope, with a ZWO 174mm Mini guiding camera mounted co-axially to the AT-92 using Stellarvue RO76 rings and a Vixen-style dovetail plate. The AT-92 is mounted on an iOptron CEM-70 equatorial mount, which has a 70lb payload rating.

The AT-92 with guide scope and cameras weighs less than 20lbs, so the CEM-70 carries it with ease. The CEM-70 is equipped with the I-Polar polar axis camera, which makes polar alignment a snap. 

The basic setup (less power 

and data cabling) is shown at

right. 

While practicing setting up and

taking down my rig, it was 

easy to move the tri-pier and

mount (less counterweight

bar and counterweight) out to

the patio. Attaching the 

counterweight bar and weight

and the dovetail bar with 

telescope proved to be easy.

It is just 15 feet to my desk in

the 3-season room, so the

cable runs are short. During the

first imaging session, 

everything worked perfectly.

I'm sure it will get easier each

time as I get more familiar with

the setup.

First light with the new rig 

came on June 22nd, 2025, my 

birthday!

Everything went smoothly, and the first image (M-27, the Dumbbell Nebula) looks promising.

I'm now looking forward to my next imaging session (hopefully in July) when I will try to image M-13, the great globular cluster in Hercules.

Incidentally, I took a Sky Quality Meter (SQM) reading during the M-27 exposures and was pleased to note the reading of 18.99 magnitude. My suburban skies are darker than I expected! I'm encouraged that I can continue to produce pleasing astro-images from the new location for Land of Oz Observatory.  More to come.....

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