Greg Marshall


About Greg Marshall

I am a retired electronics engineer and after a few months of enjoying my leisure I began to miss doing product development. My astronomy hobby always needed new solutions to unique problems, so I decided that whenever I came up with a good solution I would try to make it available to others.


So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish

In case you don’t recognize it, the title of this post is taken from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams.  This is to announce that I am closing the business side of Wa-chur-ed Observatory.  Sales have slowed to a trickle, and although that is largely due to my not putting any effort into it, I think the time has come to formally give it up.  When I get around to it I will remove the product listings from this website.  Later in the year the website will disappear completely, but I will continue to “blog” and post […]


The March of Time

No, the above image (IC443, aka the Jellyfish Nebula) is not “first light” from my new observatory – that’s still waiting on a few things, including the weather.  The data for this image was captured back in 2015, using all different (and generally less good) equipment.  But I’ve re-processed it using modern software (PixInsight and various add-ons to it) to demonstrate how powerful these tools have become.  Below is the original image, as posted on this website back in 2015: Aside from being cropped a little tighter, this is clearly the same image, and yet the difference is remarkable.  The […]


Observatory Construction, Part 2b

At the end of Part 2a the vertical posts were installed and the skirt boards around the bottom were attached.  The next step was to install joists across the (slightly) shorter axis.  The skirt boards are 2×10 and the joists are 2×8, with approximately 22 inch spacing.  The “shelf” boards at the front and back edges are not as I originally planned.  In fact, the front is different from the back.  One’s thinking changes as you get into it. There needs to be some framing around the pier because this section needs to be removable to get access to the […]


Observatory Construction, Part 2a

This is part 2a because I had intended to be finished now (Part 2), but that didn’t happen.  I have good excuses!  While waiting for the concrete to set I got Covid.  This was the first time for me, and I was very cautious about it – staying in quarantine pretty much full time for 5 days.  I’m feeling much better now, but my strength is returning slowly.  And now it has started raining, so it will probably be a few days before I can do any more work. The first step after allowing the concrete to set was to […]


Breaking Ground for Wa-chur-ed 2

Construction has finally begun on Wa-chur-ed Obervatory 2.  It was difficult to select a location in my backyard that would satisfy a myriad of requirements, including approval from the HOA and (more importantly) my wife.  It is just south of the west corner of the house, 25 feet away. The old observatory was a “roll-off roof” (ROR) type, but this will be an actual dome, similar to this: The base is 2.2 meters in diameter, and if you scale the image of the door from that you’ll see that “watch your head” is even more appropriate for this structure.  Fortunately, […]


Not “First Light”

Astronomers often use the phrase “first light” in reference to the first time some new equipment is used, especially a telescope.  I’m looking forward to first light for my new observatory in Santa Fe, but these images are from my trip to the Pacific Northwest in August.  The only new equipment there was my travel trailer! I stayed at SkyView Acres (SVA) for most of the trip, and did all the imaging from there (see the Sept. 23rd post for a photo of my setup).  I used the SVX80T ‘scope (with 0.74X reducer) for all the images, and it worked […]


Annular Eclipse (Oct. 14, 2023)

I guess I should have reminded you before the day of the eclipse, but I suspect most readers here were well aware of it, and/or unable to see it.  Although complete annularity was visible from my home in Santa Fe, I decided to drive an hour south to be close to the centerline.  In a total eclipse you want to be close to the centerline to get the longest period of time in totality.  In an annular eclipse this is also true, but perhaps the more important consideration is that the Moon passes through the center of the Sun, so […]


(A Sort of) First Light

It must be about a year since I last posted here.  Much of that period was consumed by my move from Vancouver, WA to Santa Fe, NM.  We’ve been in our new home for almost 6 months now, and I’m just getting started on building an observatory in the backyard.  Until a few days ago, I hadn’t even set up a telescope here, although I have brought ‘scopes to several public outreach events with the Santa Fe Stargazers (SFS).  But there is an annular solar eclipse coming up in a few weeks, and since I haven’t done any solar imaging […]


Power*Star Pro Tips: Bad Connector Choices

Before getting into this edition of “Pro Tips”, a little update on what’s been happening at Wa-chur-ed Observatory:  We’re moving!  The original observatory (located in Vancouver, WA) was in the backyard of my home there, which has been sold.  We’re now in Santa Fe, NM, but don’t yet have a home here, which means I’m largely unable to ship any products, and even somewhat hampered in supporting existing customers.  Hopefully, things will be back to normal by April.  After getting settled in and caught up, work will begin on the new observatory. A Power*Star customer recently asked me about connecting […]


The New Ghost Rider

Last week the sky was clear every night, and although most nights either the seeing or transparency was poor, I was out every night capturing photons from this target.  This was using my new camera, a QHY268M.  I had tried it a couple of months ago (see the last post), but had trouble with internal reflections in the telescope, which have now been fixed.  So this, technically, not “first light” for this camera, but I’m going to call it that anyway, and can say that it is a great camera.  I used exposures of 5 minutes for each filter on […]