Scattered Thoughts . . .

I haven't mentioned much about my health in the last few blog entries so I thought I would add an update since my health has been quite lousy in recent months.  No news definitely does not mean good news.  A select few of those who read this blog might be wondering how things are going so I figured I would add a blog entry just about my current health. To start...  I have long-COVID and actually have been struggling with long-COVID since mid-2020.  This is on top of a rare myeloproliferative disorder and extensive spinal injuries.   For those of you who may think that this long-COVID stuff is nonsense, I can advise you that this long-COVID stuff is relentless, severely debilitating and, usually, intensely painful.  Anyone who thinks long-COVID (or even COVID) is nonsense or "like the flu" or "like a cold" is an ignorant fool.  Anyone who doesn't see the dangerously dark direction this virus is headed for humanity is blissfully and selfishly blind to what is

W ith the upcoming eclipse, I want to make sure we have everything we need to safely view the eclipse especially if Lukey and Kenzie are going to observe it with us.  If the weather doesn't cooperate (which is likely) then at least I'll have these items for other days of solar astronomy.  If the weather does cooperate, I definitely want to be able to view this eclipse as many ways as possible and these solar glasses will come in handy. Obviously, since I have a few telescopes, I'll have telescopes set up in the yard too.  Each telescope will have an appropriate solar filter and will be ready for viewing at any time.  However, when you are sitting back in a chair, it would be nice to have solar glasses available to watch the eclipse as well.   I just purchased these solar glasses, below, about a week ago.  They came in a box of three.  The great thing about these solar glasses is that they have sturdy frames and they fit over regular eyeglasses quite well.  These are definit

The new saddle for my new SolarQuest mount arrived this morning...  finally (USPS shipping is horrendous) ...  so I spent a little time upgrading the mount this morning.  I did a bit of work upgrading it yesterday too but I had been waiting for this new saddle to arrive for quite a while and I finally got that done this morning. In the photo, below, you can see the original saddle that came already installed on the SolarQuest mount.  I've had some bad experiences with this type of saddle...  the cast aluminum tends to crack and break eventually, the single bolt damages dovetail bars, and the single bolt isn't a secure as it should be...  so I wanted to replace it with a better one to keep my telescopes as secure as possible. In this next photo, you can see the new replacement saddle.  It is a much heavier duty saddle and it is actually a large clamp to hold the telescope rather than just a single bolt holding the telescope in place.  Replacing this saddle was easy when the new