Scattered Thoughts . . .

I have one of those illnesses that is actually quite consistent.  The symptoms are transient through time, space and frequency but the illness itself is quite consistent.  In order to get a few good days, I must pay the price with a few bad days.  Unfortunately, it is not an even trade-off...  I pay the price of a few good days by having to endure many, many days of bad days.  I'm in that low part of the trade-off cycle now.   On the last two days of our cross country train journey (Monday and Tuesday), I had an annoying sore throat.  I've had worse sore throats but it was consistent and wouldn't go away.  I was hoping that I was just a bit dehydrated since I was avoiding an excess of fluids due to availability of bathrooms.  Unfortunately, I would quickly realize that the sore throat was not due to slight dehydration.  Although dehydration can bring on other problems, that would have been a more simple problem to resolve...  pump fluids either orally or through IV. O

Everyone was in their bunks by 8:30 this evening.  Once it gets dark outside, there isn't a whole lot to see out the windows of the train.  I think everyone is a bit worn out too.  Anyway, I am still awake attempting to edit some photos and type this blog entry as the train rocks and lurches down the rails at about 80 miles per hour (according to my GPS).  Let me tell you, editing photos and typing is no easy task under these conditions so I wouldn't be surprised to find a few typos in this blog entry when I check it at our next destination.  While I'm still up in my lower bunk, I'll get this next blog entry published and linked to Facebook. Early this afternoon, we checked out of our hotel and walked the couple of blocks to the train station so we could catch The Lakeshore Limited.  This train will take us on our second leg from Springfield, Massachusetts to Chicago.   Our walk to the newly renovated Union Station was nice in what could only be considered spring

The first leg of our journey is complete!  We arrived in Springfield, Massachusetts only a few minutes late.  We then walked the couple of blocks to our hotel in a light rain and 33 degrees.   The only little problems we had were the weather at home...  a snow squall put us a little bit behind but we had planned to get to the train station about 45 minutes early so we had no problems.  Then, when we arrived at our hotel in Springfield, our keys wouldn't open our room.  Sheila went back down to the front desk...  new keys...  still didn't work.  She then called the front desk from Will and Sue's room (adjoining room to our room).  Someone then came up two or three times to resolve the issue.  It wasn't a big problem and hopefully those will be our biggest problems of this cross-country journey! Okay...  I think I hear a beer calling me from the hotel bar so it is time for us to head to the lounge...

I have a little bit of time before we need to head to the train station so I thought I would try a few different processing techniques on yesterday's solar images.  The sunspot is still obvious in this image as well as a few other areas of interest.  The other areas may be sunspots forming...  time will tell.   These are images capturing white light using a glass solar filter mounted on the front objective lens of my telescope.  I captured the image using my Sony a6000 camera and using a 2.5x GSO barlow.  This particular image, below, is a single frame.  Yesterday's image was the result of stacking 10 images.   I'm actually a bit surprised by the amount of detail I'm seeing here in this image.  This was captured using my smaller Skywatcher ED 72mm refractor telescope.  Also, the glass filter isn't as good as my usual solar wedge diagonal especially when it is mounted on my larger Explore Scientific ED 102mm APO refractor.   Yesterday's imaging was simply to

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!