Scattered Thoughts . . .

A s I mentioned in a previous blog entry, last Saturday was my last day of imaging with what was, at the time, my best telescope mount (see photo, at right).  At the time, it seemed like the electronics were toast so that put an end to this last imaging session within a short few minutes.  Then I spent the next few hours trying to figure out exactly what was wrong with this mount. Even after a few days, I still had not fixed the mount because I still had no idea what could be wrong other than perhaps a piece of obsolete and no-longer-available electronics failed so I ordered a new mount.  The mount I ordered was the newer and significantly improved version of this older mount.  The advantage of purchasing the same (but improved) mount is that I wouldn't need to purchase any other associated accessories because this new mount would fit everything I already own.  It would fit every tripod, it would fit my telescope pier with no adapting necessary, and all my associated accessories wo

One evening, while Gee went to pick up Lukey and Kenzie earlier in the week, I wandered around our yard with one of my cameras in hand.  Most of our flowers are now in bloom so it was time to try to capture some nice images of the landscaping around our house.   We get a lot of compliments about our home as people walk by our house.  Actually, almost everyday we get at least one compliment.  Even while I was shooting photos on this particular evening, a neighbor walked by and told me she loved the house and that "it looks like a little paradise".  I must be doing something right with our landscaping and the exterior of the house. Here are a few photos. First, here is a photo looking toward the road... Here is our covered outdoor kitchen...  one of the most useful and nicest additions to our home... We used to cover this tree in Christmas lights every year until it grew to about 30 feet tall.  Now it is probably more than 50 feet tall... Another evening of S'mores... Two o

I had previously written about a morning of solar observing .  This time, I am going to write about a morning of solar imaging . I was excited to do some imaging because my previous morning of observing-only was exceptional.  The atmospheric conditions (astronomical "seeing" as it is rather unscientifically and rather ridiculously called by the astronomy community) were well above average when I was observing the previous day.  Those kinds of seeing conditions are rare so I was hoping that this morning of imaging would have skies that were just as good.  Sometimes good seeing lasts only an hour, other times it will last for a couple of days.  It was clear on this morning, there was a deep blue sky, and the weather was beautiful.  Above average seeing conditions would be awesome for imaging.   After about a half hour of setup time, running in and out of the house collecting the necessary gear and assembling it all, I was ready to fire up the computer and point the telescope to

I've been overwhelmingly exhausted this past week so I really haven't been doing much other than sleeping, eating and using the bathroom.  This morning, however, we had an unusually clear, sunny sky so I decided to do some solar observing with a couple of telescopes.  I felt that I had enough energy in me to drag a couple of telescopes out of the house for a simple observing session so that is what I did.   I had quickly decided to just make this an observing session only though.  To do a "proper" imaging session would require far more equipment including a computer and associated cables and thus would require far more energy.  This was energy I still didn't have just yet.  Honestly, I was still feeling as though I could sleep for another week before diving into anything too taxing.  My plan was to just observe the sun for about an hour or so while saving enough energy to then put everything back in storage.  (It turns out that I did not have enough energy to prop

L ukey's train set is being improved little by little.  That was the intention when I first built this HO scale train set for him.  Every now and then, we would add something else to it.  About a week ago, we added railroad grade crossing signs. These buckboard crossing sign posts came as a laser-cut kit so there was a lot of work to be done to make them look like grade crossings! We cut out each part, filed and sanded the edges smooth, glued each piece, and painted them in appropriate colors.   We added these newly built buckboard grade crossing signs to the layout even though the actual road grades now need some adapting and attention.  We now have some buckboard crossing signs without a road in a couple of places.  Plus, even where there is a road, the road grade does not meet the track smoothly.  Finishing up these road grades at the crossing will be a project for another day.  Today's project was to assemble, paint and install the buckboard crossing signs... It may be diff

T he weather was generally lousy while Lukey and Kenzie were staying with us for a few weeks.  We didn't have many rainy days of solid rain but we had a lot of dark days with intermittent rain.  One particular day was indeed a solid rainy morning so we set up Lukey's trains in the kitchen while Gee worked from her home office.   Due to the pandemic, we converted our "train room" into Sheila's home office so we had to find another place to run Lukey's trains since Gee was working from home while Lukey and Kenzie stayed with us.   We cleared off the kitchen table and set his HO scale layout on the table.  That actually worked far better than I thought it would!  The layout hung off the end of the kitchen table but the layout itself was solid enough to handle the weight of the trains without the support of the table under the last foot of one end of the layout.  Having the train set on a table was far more comfortable than running them while the layout is placed

K enzie sort of inherited a small lot of China dolls a few weeks ago.  These dolls needed a bit of attention so Kenzie and Gee went to work on them a couple of weeks ago.  First, Kenzie chose the dolls she liked the most out of the small lot of dolls.  I believe she chose about half of the dolls for various reasons.  These were some nice looking dolls! Then it was time to evaluate their condition to see what needed to be corrected.  All of the dolls needed some cleaning and some airing-out.  Hair needed to be cleaned and brushed.  Clothes were hand-washed.  Even Papa was asked to fix one China doll's figure skates.  I had a gel cyanoacrylate glue that worked perfectly for gluing the figure skate blades back to the white upper boots.   This little project gave Kenzie some one-on-one time with Gee.  Plus, these are things that Kenzie adores...  dolls.  She was pretty excited.  In the end, Kenzie went home with a nice selection of China dolls.  

O ne of my latest projects has been to install rainbarrels to collect rain water coming off the roof.  We use this water to water all our flower gardens and potted flowers.  I also use it for the lawn.  This free water allows our house to look like a colorful and lush flowering oasis. I had actually purchased the rainbarrels last summer.  Unfortunately, one of them arrived with a fast leak in the barrel itself around the spigot valve so that rainbarrel sat around empty until this season.  I set them up on a stand anyway, rearranged the downspout off the gutter so it will fill the rainbarrels with rain water, plumbed both rainbarrels, and then attacked the leaking problem first thing this spring.   My first attempt at fixing the leaking rainbarrel last summer was a failure.  Finding the right adhesive to seal these barrels was a problem.  After my first failure, I ordered a tube of roofing cement and a small sheet of black acrylic.  First thing this spring, I cut the acrylic to fit over