Scattered Thoughts . . .

I was evaluating a new solar filter on two separate mornings over the past week.  The views weren't as good as they could be.  These views were brighter than necessary and my research was indicating that reducing the aperture of the telescope might produce better results.  In particular, I was hoping to find a way to see more detail on the surface of the sun's chromosphere.  I always have some scrap lumber lying around so I went looking for a small scrap of 1/4" plywood.  I could cut a hole of the correct size and then cut out the outside diameter.  This would then fit inside the dew shield on my telescope.  The inside hole would provide the new, smaller aperture for the telescope. In this case, my intention was to cut a 60mm hole.  Unfortunately, the drill bit walked a bit when cutting so I screwed up the hole slightly.  Fortunately, I managed to salvage the project by making the hole a 63mm diameter hole instead.  This would change my f5.8 telescope to an f6.67 telescop

W hen I brought my telescope and mount outside the other day to do some solar observing, a leg bracket broke on my tripod as I was opening up the tripod legs.  This bracket holds the leg in place when it is in use and the tripod is useless with a broken bracket.  My day wasn't starting out too well. I wanted to use this particular telescope mount because it has slow motion control knobs.  These slow motion controls make it easier to keep the sun in the center of my view.  As I slowly turn one knob, the sun stays in the center of my view.  Now I had to move the telescope over to another small mount.  I went back to my new-ish Alt-Az manual mount.  I really wanted to use those slow motion controls for this session though so this was a bit of a letdown.  Having another thing break and added to my to-do list was an even bigger letdown.   As you can see in the photo, the tabs that hold the spreader bar snapped off.  I had fairly recently rebuilt this mount with ball bearings and a bette

The sun was shining this morning so, on my way to the bathroom for my morning cleanup and visit, I immediately turned on my new Ha (hydrogen alpha) solar filter so it could warm up.  This particular filter requires power to keep the etalon (interference filter) at the optimal temperature so I can see the most details.  The wavelength band varies very slightly by controlling the temperature of the etalon.  The more finely tuned the temperature setting, the more details you will see.  The filter requires about 10 minutes to warm up so I turned it on before washing up and brushing my teeth so it would be ready when I was ready for the day. I then headed out into the frigid single digit temperatures (just like the other morning) with the battery pack in my pocket and the telescope and mount in my hands.  I carefully made my way down to the end of the icy driveway where I have an unobstructed view of the sun quite low in the southeastern sky. I had far more success at pointing the telescope

W hen I got up this morning, I immediately noticed that the sun was shining through our windows.  It was very noticeable because this is not something we see all that often and especially not in the dead of winter when it is typically snowing every single day.  The sky appeared blue so it meant I should attempt a quick solar observing session with a new solar filter.  I had received this new filter a few days previously and was waiting for clear skies to use it for the first time. The temperature was in the single digits but there was no wind so I figured that the sun would help keep me warm.  I quickly dressed for the frigid outdoors and collected my astronomy gear.  I headed outdoors for a "first light" with this new filter. As expected with these sort of things, this session didn't go as planned.  It is often difficult to figure out the focus point for a new piece of equipment so I expected to have to play around with different configurations.   Needless to say, I had