Scattered Thoughts . . .

I've mentioned in a previous blog entry that I've been working on getting some telescopes ready for nighttime viewing in the warmer weather. The grandkids are getting old enough to enjoy viewing the night sky so this gave me a good reason to play with some telescopes. I have a background in aerospace so this has always been an interest of mine but it is always nice to have another reason like grandkids. It makes it easier to justify the hobby. Naturally, it seems it has done nothing but rain (and snow) for all but one day since I assembled these telescopes in our living room a few weeks ago but this has given me time to decide what to do with one or two scopes that have been terribly frustrating to use. One of these telescopes in question was a Celestron   AstroMaster  114EQ reflector telescope. This telescope has been nothing but frustration since we bought it quite a few years ago. Nothing looked even halfway decent through this scope. I've collimated it (aligned the

We've been missing a lot of time with Lukey and Kenzie over the past nine months. Sheila's cancer and cancer treatment really halted our life to a standstill quickly followed by a few other tragic events including the past three weeks in the hospital with our newest grandchild, Ellie. We'll be back at the hospital to spend some time with Ellie, Whitney and Wayne tomorrow but, today, we spent some time with Lukey and Kenzie. Lukey was in desperate need of a haircut so that was first on our schedule today. Then we jumped right into some waffles for breakfast... Kenzie and Gee spent some time doing some online clothes shopping. For the most part, their faces showed their mutual agreement in what they were seeing online... We watched a movie during breakfast and then the kids got to play with some toys they even forgot that they have here at Gee and Papa's house! We also watched some air races for a little while... some astronomy videos... and, of cours