Scattered Thoughts . . .

I 'm still mending a sprained MCL in my right knee so I'm still not really accomplishing much on my To-Do list.  Every now and then, however, I feel halfway decent and am able to jump into a small little project at the kitchen table.  This still needs to be short because I need to keep changing positions...  no sitting for a long period of time, no standing for a long period of time.  This keeps the size of these occasional projects on the very small side.  Plus, the longer I work on any project, the more likely I am to do something stupid with my knee.  The last thing I want at this point is to be set back to square one yet again.   I have this old Celestron 70mm refractor telescope that, in recent years, I adapted to a different type of mount.  In order to do that upgrade, I needed to remove a bunch of mounting hardware that was bolted through the optical tube.  This hardware wasn't needed and was in the way of the new mounting cradle rings and dovetail bar so most of the

When I looked outside this morning, it was sunny and clear. That's a rarity around these parts! I also noticed that the moon was still in the sky. It was getting close to the horizon and setting fast but, if I was quick about it, I could pull the small telescope outside and do a quick test by observing the moon.  I quickly set the little telescope on our stone walkway and pointed it toward the moon... I turned the focusing knobs... the moon came into crisp focus! So that means that all the upgrading and rebuilding I did in recent weeks produced a far better telescope. This was good news. As I mentioned above, the moon was setting quickly so I was attempting to use my slow motion knobs to constantly adjust the mount to keep the telescope pointed at the moon... it would track slightly and then when I let go it would spring back toward where I started from when I first started turning these knobs. This would happen over and over until the moon was too low in the sky.  My first