Scattered Thoughts . . .

I took a break from packing for our train trip to do some solar observing and imagery.  It is sunny and relatively warm today (in the 30s) so I wanted to get outside for a little bit.  This also gave me a chance to test my homemade solar finderscope while mounted on my telescope.  The finderscope worked fine which made easy work of finding the sun.  There is still so much snow out there that the sun was blinding in the bright sunlight!  I couldn't see a thing on my camera when I mounted it on the telescope.  It was difficult getting my settings correct and then it was difficult seeing well enough to focus.  I managed to capture a pretty good image of the sun though.  Although I captured a sunspot on our sun today, we're actually in a lull lately for solar activity.  We won't hit peak in solar activity again until 2024 if I remember correctly.  Last summer was exceptionally dull with absolutely no details seen on the surface of the sun when viewing in white light.  Now,

I had to head back outdoors to lug the drill press back to the shed so I decided to test my new homemade solar finderscope while I was out there anyway.  I quickly assembled it in the kitchen...  I grabbed my camera...  and then I headed out to the sunlight... It works! Well, that is a relief!  It is always nice when something you design works as designed.  Now I can mount this finderscope on my little telescope when I use it for solar observing and imaging. When we get back home from our long cross-country journey, I'll do the finish painting on the outside of the finderscope.  Now I feel like I accomplished something!  

I was supposed to start sorting clothes, do some laundry, and do some ironing  this morning for our upcoming cross-country trip.  I was planning to get started on ironing and went searching for an over-the-door hanger so I had a place to hang the shirts I ironed...  I couldn't find it...  I got frustrated...  then I got sidetracked. During my search for the over-the-door hanger, my spinal injuries started hurting and I was getting worn out.  While searching, I noticed a piece of sheet metal in the back room and that was all it took for me to change gears and work on a different project.  So, instead of preparing for this trip, I pulled out that piece of sheet metal...  then dug out some tools... and I started working on a solar finder scope that I designed yesterday.  Yesterday, I had already made a crude form of a solar finder scope out of a short piece of PVC pipe and one coupler.  I cut each to various sizes so I could accurately piece everything together in a workable form

courtesy of Amtrak            Sheila and I will be heading on another cross-country rail journey with Sheila's parents very soon and we are now making all our final arrangements.  We've arranged hotels, contingency plans for delays, connecting trains, rental cars, and even decided upon some sightseeing and restaurants.  Arranging this coast to coast journey has required a lot of planning and coordinating and, at this point, we are on the homestretch and excited about this long distance journey.   Sheila's parents are accompanying us on this trip and we're all looking forward to it.  I believe it is safe to say that we're all a bit sick and tired of the grueling winter weather...  and most of us (three of the four of us) are sick and tired of being sick and tired.  We could use some down time on a cross-country train journey just taking in the views as the entire country passes by right outside the window of our sleeper car and all-glass lounge. Sheila, Wi

As I was passing by the living room window heading to the bedroom tonight, I noticed that the sky was clear...  two nights in a row is a shocking surprise...  and the full Snow Moon was again shining brightly so I grabbed my camera and shot a couple of quick photos out the living room window.  This supermoon is still appearing a bit larger than normal even though it was higher in the sky tonight than it was the previous night when I noticed it shining in our living room window.   As much as I'm dying to get out there with a telescope or two, it is still far too frigid out there for me.  I'll wait for the temperatures to get into the 40s!  Right now, we're closer to -40 than we are 40 degrees.  To set up the telescope and mount, I need about 15 minutes.  Then I need another 15 minutes or so to properly level and align the telescope with the celestial north pole.  By the time I'm done doing that, I'd be freezing and dying to get back indoors so it doesn't make a

Kenzie visited us again recently while Lukey was playing hockey.  She was cold and tired of watching hockey so Pop drove her from the hockey tournament to our house so she could spend time with Gee and Papa rather than sit at a cold ice rink all day long.   As always, we had a good time with her!   While she was here, she left us a little reminder on the home page of our Echo Show...  as though we would forget about her otherwise... Thanks, Mackenzie!  I'd rather do a longer photo shoot with you though!

Although, at the moment, the sun is shining brightly in an exceedingly rare mostly cloudless sky, we continue to get snow every day.  The house is barely visible behind towering banks of snow where we have piled up snow from the driveway and walkways to the house.  I like winter but, at this point, my health and my spinal injuries have had enough of this nonsense.  It is causing far too much pain.  There are some projects I'd like to tackle too but the frigid snowy weather is keeping me indoors.  I have a few little woodworking projects I'd like to complete but I need to set up my power tools outdoors where I have room and where the sawdust won't cake everything inside the house.   In the meantime, the falling snow provides a nice peaceful landscape out our windows.  Enough is enough though... my old, beat-up body needs a break!

Our moon is currently making its way around us on the closest path to Earth for 2019...  at around 221,700 miles from Earth.  At its farthest point from us, it is 253,000 miles.  So, because it is closer to us, our February "Snow Moon" also appears slightly larger than usual...  especially as it just comes up over the horizon.   We haven't seen much sky in recent months so it was a surprise to see the big, bright moon as it rose last night and bathed our snowy landscape with soft white light.  This light was so bright it was casting shadows in our living room.  My first thought was to bring a telescope outside to get a closer look at the moon.  After quickly glancing at the thermometer, I instead opted for grabbing a camera and shooting a few shots through our living room window.  It was far too cold out there for me!   The moon had just risen above the ridge of the Worcester Range opposite our living room window but was still behind the leafless trees.  I though

Throughout various points over the course of our train show weekend, I shot a few video clips in different places while everyone was doing different things.  Naturally, I included a few short clips from the train show itself...  a few minutes of Maggie the Clown's show...  a couple of short video clips of the pool at the hotel...  and, a few short clips from The Munich Haus German restaurant.   Lukey was lucky enough to be chosen to be part of Maggie and Clown's magic act.  He spent a few minutes on stage with Maggie and another child from the audience.  Naturally, Papa shot video of the whole thing so that Lukey could view the video any time he wants while visiting us.  Unfortunately, when we arrived home and I transferred the photos and video clips to my desktop computer, I immediately noticed that I screwed up the entire video of Lukey being on stage!  I wasn't paying attention to the camera as I watched Lukey and I paid the price... all the video of Lukey on stage was

Whenever we are traveling, obviously, we eat out a lot.  That being said, we always try to eat our meals in various restaurants serving different food from different cultures.  This year was no exception.  On this particular night, below, we were all (16 of us) eating at The Munich Haus German restaurant.  This is always a fun meal, albeit a bit noisy...  after all, it is a rather small German Festhaus... This may look like a rather weird salad but, I have to say that this meat-eater really likes this salad! We tried to sell Lukey on the Kangaroo Skewers or Alligator Poppers or Frogs Legs... we were greeted with one of these looks.  He was so picky on this particular night that our resident pickle lover (Lukey) wouldn't even touch a platter of fried pickles...   We had a table of 16 this year... Kenzie tried something new to her...  Kase Spatzle...  and she liked it! Our Saturday morning breakfast at Cracker Barrel...  While we waited for our