Scattered Thoughts . . .

The nine feet of used track that I had ordered online the other day arrived today so I was finally able to run this large Fn3 scale steam locomotive on some track for the first time.  A couple of days ago, I spent a little time cleaning and lubricating this old steam locomotive.  I had tested it, running, while it was lying on its side but I had yet to run it on any track...  until today.  When the track arrived, it was in need of cleaning.  The rails were a solid dark brown color indicating they would not conduct nearly enough of the low voltage electricity needed to power any locomotive.  The rails appeared to be completely oxidized.  Actually, it appears as though this track was barely used and probably spent most of its life on a display shelf which is likely what its primary use will be at our home too (along with occasional test runs).  After a few minutes of cleaning, the tops of the rails were nice and shiny again. I didn't clean any of the rail joiners nor where the rail j

A bout twice a year, I try to put aside some time to do some maintenance on my model locomotives.  They accumulate dust and grime so that is the first thing to address.  They also could use periodic lubrication.  After some cleaning and lubrication, I look the entire locomotive over to see if it needs any other work.   Yesterday morning, I worked on some of my O scale locomotives as well as a couple of HO scale locomotives.  One of these O scale locomotives could still use some more work so I might try to tackle that tomorrow morning.  It is one of my older locomotives so I'm thinking there is some caked up grease on the gears.  It is not running as smoothly as I would like and the likely problem is some old, hardened grease on the gears.  Hopefully, that will be a fairly simple job.  (See the edit added at the bottom of this blog entry for more information on what I thought would be a quick and easy task.) This morning, I pulled out my largest locomotive.  I had purchased this ver

T wo or three times a year, I put together a small photo book of photos I have shot documenting some of the things we've done so I can send it to my father.  We haven't traveled at all since the beginning of the pandemic and we are still in no hurry for that.  Well...  we would like to travel but the risk is still too great.  I've already had the virus three times and I am still experiencing lingering problems due to the virus so I'm in no hurry to expose myself further.  My health was bad enough before these lingering problems due to the virus.  I don't need to continue to expose myself and my health to more problems. While I was sorting through photos and choosing photos to put in this photo book, I came across some of my solar images from a session in July that were worth writing about here in my blog.   I specifically remember this particular session because I was able to watch a solar flare erupt and recede for about an hour.  It was a pretty amazing and very m

I finally purchased a much needed dedicated solar astronomy camera and it arrived last night!   I've been using a sort of generic beginner astronomy camera (well...  maybe one step above entry level) meant primarily for guide scopes and planetary imaging.  There are far worse cameras than the one I've been using until now but this camera is not really an ideal choice for solar imaging.  It has been slow, difficult to use, noisy, and the image quality has been seriously lacking.  Producing good results out of this old astronomy camera has been difficult, frustrating and requiring a lot of extra post-processing.  I've had to work very hard at finessing fine detail out of the images and I've only managed to succeed at doing that because of my decades of photography experience.  I admit that I've managed to produce some nice imagery with the old camera but it has been difficult to accomplish requiring a lot of extra work and time.  Plus, much of the data from the old c

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

B ack in mid-August, we had a nice evening of pitching and putting in the backyard with some of the grandchildren.  This type of thing is always a great opportunity for capturing photos of the grandkids so, naturally, I had a couple of cameras and a few lenses on hand.  While they played, I kept moving around trying to capture the best angles.   Shooting photos of kids means getting down on my knees or crouching or sitting on the ground but my knees have been painful and swollen since my first bout with COVID-19 so this little informal photo shoot was a bit painful.  Even if I sit on the ground, getting down onto the ground and getting up again is painful.  Kneeling or crouching, however, will put me back on crutches again so I always avoid those two positions.  Still, I refused to resort to shooting photos of kids while looking down on them.  Kids should always be photographed down at their level.  It was beginning to get dark as the sun set behind the trees but we still had some sun

L ukey and Kenzie accompanied us to the International Antique and Classic Boat Show on Lake Champlain in Burlington last weekend.  The weather was great although maybe a bit too hot for a September afternoon.  We walked quite a few miles as we drooled over many antique boats.   After perusing all the beautiful boats all along the waterfront, we brought the grandkids out to dinner for their first barbeque meal at a restaurant that specializes in barbeque.  Barbeque is hard to find up here in Vermont so our choice of restaurants was limited.  Sheila and I had been here once before so we knew what dishes to avoid at this particular restaurant.  We chose to order a bunch of different dishes and share them family-style.  Overall, it was a great meal and we left completely full! We then made our way back home to sit around a warm fire in the backyard and have some S'mores for dessert.  It was a long, busy but very good day! Here are a few of the many photos from our day... Trying to find