Scattered Thoughts . . .

O ver the past week, in between bouts of lousy health, I have been working on making two homemade solar flat caps.   A flat cap comes in handy when imaging the sun.  The flat cap will diffuse the view for images that are called "flat frames".  These flat caps are placed over the front end of the telescope, temporarily, to shoot these flat frames.  The flat frames are then divided into the stack of normal image frames.   A good flat frame will allow me to create even light across the frame (solar filters create mildly uneven light across the frame).  It will also help to eliminate any dust specks on the image files.   Of course, keeping the camera's sensor clean also eliminates specks and blobs of dust but using a flat frame is another process to effectively smooth out many of these types of defects in the solar image stacks.  This little project called for scrounging up various household materials and some hobby tools.  I always have some thin styrene on hand and that def

I made two solar filters relatively recently.  One was made a little over a year ago (pictured at right) and the other was made a little over two years ago (next picture, below).  I was happy with these two filters but rarely used them because I have far better types of solar filters to use.  I think my primary reason for this exercise in making these filters was simply for the experience more than any other reason although there were a couple of other reasons (which I'll address below).  But let me start this blog entry by saying that I will never again use one of these piece-of-garbage, flimsy, and consequently, dangerous Baader film solar filters! I haven't used either filter more than three or four times each in this two year period and they have been handled exceptionally carefully ( never touching the filter material) and stored in protective zip-lock bags and these bags placed inside protective boxes for storage until the next use.  Even though these two filters were

Note:  Kenzie will not receive this Christmas gift for another week  (New Years Day)  so, if you should happen to be reading this blog before then, please say absolutely nothing to Kenzie about this gift.  We would like this to be a surprise for her! I 've been busy the past few weeks designing and building a new dollhouse addition for Kenzie.  A few years ago, I designed and built a dollhouse townhouse for her and, over the years, we've added to the interior furniture and the number of dolls for the townhouse.  We've even added window boxes, shrubbery and a tree in subsequent Christmases.   This year, Kenzie asked for some food for the dollhouse.  She wanted only food, presumably to put on her kitchen table and countertops.  She circled a number of items in one of my dollhouse catalogs so I purchased these items for her townhouse.  I still felt like her gift should be more than just a bit of food for her dollhouse, so... Since Kenzie enjoys cooking and baking, I decided to

S heila and I decided today would be a good day for a half pot of chili today.  I started early this morning by slow cooking the pork.  I got that done by lunchtime.  It was so tender and juicy that it took all my willpower not to eat everything as I pulled it apart!  Mid-afternoon, I got started on chopping all the peppers and onions.  Whenever I make chili, I add an assortment of peppers for some depth.  Today, we have three different types of peppers.   I started by sauteing about five cloves of garlic, the onion, and the peppers.  After a few minutes, I added some dark red kidney beans and black beans.  Once everything started warming up, I added a can of San Marzano crushed tomatoes followed by some beef stock with a bit of corn starch and cream.   After mixing it all together very well, I added the pulled pork from this morning.  I often just opt for ground beef because it is easier but I definitely prefer pulled pork.  Today I made the extra effort so we could add pulled pork in

I finished my homemade telescope pier extension project today and it seems to be working as planned. There isn't a whole lot in life that is more satisfying than designing something in sketches in a notebook, then building each individual part yourself, then assembling all the parts and finding that everything works just as designed and planned! My primary problem that prompted this project was that my longer telescopes would hit the tripod legs when viewing almost straight upward.  Also a factor in my decision is that my astronomy tripod isn't tall enough for my longer refractor telescopes which meant I would need to sit down very low on the ground to see into the eyepiece.  I needed a pier extension to raise the mount and telescope higher.   Some may ask why I don't just extend the legs fully to gain some overall height but this is a bad idea for two reasons.  First, it will do nothing for me to resolve the telescope colliding with the tripod legs.  And next, the more yo

A nother little project I have been working on lately is making a couple of aperture masks for one of my telescopes.  I've been using my Celestron 120mm refractor for planetary views.  Well, actually, I purchased that telescope specifically for solar imaging but, at night, it is a decent telescope for planetary as well as lunar views so this is the telescope I currently use for planetary observing.  I'd like to eventually get a telescope with a much longer focal length for planetary astronomy but this telescope will do for now.  I'd like to eventually purchase a longer refractor telescope for planetary astronomy but I might settle for a Cassegrain telescope instead.  For now, I'll be using this Celestron 120mm refractor with a 1000mm focal length. This 120mm refractor is an achromat so there is a lot of chromatic aberration on planetary views.  I added a Baader Contrast Booster to the front end of my diagonal and that has helped cut down most of the chromatic aberration