Scattered Thoughts . . .

I am all set up to do some solar imaging but I am now waiting for the sun to clear the trees.  This time of year, the sun travels very low across the sky so I only have a relatively short window of opportunity to observe or view the sun.   I plan to start with some white light observing and imaging of the sun's photosphere.  My solar wedge solar filter includes a Continuum filter as well as the usual IR/UV Cut, Neutral Density and Polarizing filters which has always worked fairly well for me.  I've observed and imaged this way before so there is nothing new with this configuration.  I plan to do something new today too though.  I now have a narrowband 3nm Calcium K filter inside a different solar wedge filter that I have yet to try so that will be part of today's plan.  This should produce nicer results.   The one "different" thing about this filter is that this Calcium K filter is not an observing filter.  Actually, my eyes should see nothing through this filter.

A fter a mostly sleepless night the night before last with some health issues that kept me in the bathroom and seriously cut into my sleep, I managed to get some sleep yesterday afternoon for about three or four hours in preparation of a clear night last night.  Clear nights around here are few and far between any time of year but especially in the November through March timeframe so I don't like to waste these rare nights, if possible.  This meant a relatively rare opportunity for viewing some objects in our solar system.   As the sky darkened to a deep dark blue, I set up a new telescope of mine that I have been evaluating as an option for beginners.  I had three eyepieces on hand;  a low power wide eyepiece, a medium power eyepiece, and a high power eyepiece.  I also had my Sony a6000 camera ready to go with a nosepiece on it so I could slide the camera into the diagonal in place of an eyepiece when I felt the view was worthy of recording.  Facing the back end of our backyard in

S heila was featured on the evening news this evening!  I took the easy route and just recorded it with one of my cameras while standing in front of the television.  

I was notified today that my Oncologist wants to discuss something with me again on Monday.  I'm not sure what she feels the need to discuss though since we just had a long discussion and exam at the hospital just yesterday.  I hope I'm not losing another specialist requiring me to search for a new one yet again. Sheila and I discussed a few possibilities...  like prompting me to go see my Primary Care doctor about my joint issues...  or seeing an Orthopedic specialist...  or maybe some additional bloodwork...  or maybe another bone marrow biopsy...  or maybe adding another medication to my long list of medications...   Naturally, I'll be wondering about this all weekend long.   UPDATE:  Nov 1st, 2021 - As I mentioned, above, I was notified that my Oncologist wanted to do a Televideo chat today, Nov 1st.  So, I called the office this morning to find out how they wanted to connect in Zoom.  The receptionist thought it was strange that I didn't get an email with a link

S heila and I had to run to the hospital unexpectedly at the last minute the other day to visit the lab in preparation of today's scheduled visit.  I figured I would be heading to the lab after my appointment that was scheduled for today but my oncologist wanted the lab tests done beforehand.  I got a phone call from Oncology requesting I head to the hospital two days earlier than planned.  Then, this morning, we headed up to UVM Oncology again for my scheduled appointment.   My usual lab results had no changes which is good news, I suppose.  The same things that have always been wrong with my lab results indicating Systemic Mastocytosis are unchanged.  The good news part of this equation is that the numbers aren't worse. My oncologist was a bit concerned about two things...  1) She seemed shocked by how low my oxygen saturation is getting at least once every week.  She was visibly surprised hearing that my O2 levels are getting down into the 80s (%) and sometimes even lower. 

Introduction T his blog entry is a little different than my usual entries.  Then again, my thoughts are often a bit scattered so there isn't really a consistent theme to this blog.  I do sometimes write about my hobbies including astronomy but this blog entry is not one of my typical short blog entries about viewing this or that or about some small astronomy project.  This is more along the lines of a casual review of my thoughts about a telescope.  If you are more interested in some astrophotography images rather than read about a boring telescope evaluation, then just scroll down to the closing of this blog entry (about halfway down this page). Quite often, people who are wanting to get involved in backyard astronomy for the first time ask other astronomers which telescope would be best to purchase as their first telescope.  This is a very common question that is asked at least once a day.  As a result, I find myself trying to provide advice to astronomy beginners a few times eac