Scattered Thoughts . . .

I haven't mentioned much about my health in the last few blog entries so I thought I would add an update since my health has been quite lousy in recent months.  No news definitely does not mean good news.  A select few of those who read this blog might be wondering how things are going so I figured I would add a blog entry just about my current health. To start...  I have long-COVID and actually have been struggling with long-COVID since mid-2020.  This is on top of a rare myeloproliferative disorder and extensive spinal injuries.   For those of you who may think that this long-COVID stuff is nonsense, I can advise you that this long-COVID stuff is relentless, severely debilitating and, usually, intensely painful.  Anyone who thinks long-COVID (or even COVID) is nonsense or "like the flu" or "like a cold" is an ignorant fool.  Anyone who doesn't see the dangerously dark direction this virus is headed for humanity is blissfully and selfishly blind to what is

W ith the upcoming eclipse, I want to make sure we have everything we need to safely view the eclipse especially if Lukey and Kenzie are going to observe it with us.  If the weather doesn't cooperate (which is likely) then at least I'll have these items for other days of solar astronomy.  If the weather does cooperate, I definitely want to be able to view this eclipse as many ways as possible and these solar glasses will come in handy. Obviously, since I have a few telescopes, I'll have telescopes set up in the yard too.  Each telescope will have an appropriate solar filter and will be ready for viewing at any time.  However, when you are sitting back in a chair, it would be nice to have solar glasses available to watch the eclipse as well.   I just purchased these solar glasses, below, about a week ago.  They came in a box of three.  The great thing about these solar glasses is that they have sturdy frames and they fit over regular eyeglasses quite well.  These are definit

The new saddle for my new SolarQuest mount arrived this morning...  finally (USPS shipping is horrendous) ...  so I spent a little time upgrading the mount this morning.  I did a bit of work upgrading it yesterday too but I had been waiting for this new saddle to arrive for quite a while and I finally got that done this morning. In the photo, below, you can see the original saddle that came already installed on the SolarQuest mount.  I've had some bad experiences with this type of saddle...  the cast aluminum tends to crack and break eventually, the single bolt damages dovetail bars, and the single bolt isn't a secure as it should be...  so I wanted to replace it with a better one to keep my telescopes as secure as possible. In this next photo, you can see the new replacement saddle.  It is a much heavier duty saddle and it is actually a large clamp to hold the telescope rather than just a single bolt holding the telescope in place.  Replacing this saddle was easy when the new

As expected, April's weather forecast has changed.  Unfortunately, it has not changed in the way we need.  Now, rather than there being only three clear days forecast for April, there are zero clear days in all of April!   It is not looking good for any sort of astronomy in April.   Of course, we could get extremely lucky and get a few hours of clear skies in the early afternoon of the eighth...  from 2pm to 4:30pm...  I'm not holding my breath though.

T oday is an exceptionally rare clear, sunny March day so I immediately collected some astronomy gear to bring outside.  There are a few things I want to try before the solar eclipse next month.  Really, I need all the practice I can get.  The weather has been so miserable for the past year that I haven't done any solar astronomy in almost a year! The temperature this morning was still only in the upper 30s (it is early March, after all) but I was comfortable in just a fleece sweatshirt.  Being comfortable helps.  Well...  I wasn't completely comfortable...  I'm still experiencing significant spinal pain and I'm still having difficulty putting weight on my right leg without my knee buckling underneath me.  I was more comfortable than I have been lately though so that helped. I set up the new SolarQuest mount in the backyard in the same area where we'll be observing the eclipse next month.  I could have used a small table too but I didn't feel like digging one ou

A fter my spinal problems and walking problems on Tuesday, I thought I was doing fairly well now.  I've been walking around the house with only mild difficulty and relatively mild pain which is a great improvement over my experiences on Tuesday and the excruciating pain in the weeks prior to Tuesday.  That was great.  Then, this morning, I attempted to walk out to the mailbox... Inside our house, everything is on one level.  Plus, the house is very small so I don't have far to walk while inside the house.  We do, however, have one step off a small deck at our side door.  When I stepped off that one step, my right leg buckled under me and I almost ended up on the ground.  Then, I had one more step to traverse about eight feet later...  the same thing happened and I almost ended up lying on the ground.  From this point on, the ground was unlevel and I continued having problems keeping my right leg underneath me holding my body weight.  Clearly, this new spinal inflammation is not

I 've been keeping an eye on the extended weather forecast since we're hoping to be able to view the solar eclipse in April.   As expected, the forecast is not looking good for any sort of astronomy around the 8th of April.  I'm not surprised in the least because this is typical for our neck of the woods at this time of year but I am a bit disappointed. Of the 30 days in April, it appears as though only three days might be suitable for astronomy...  the 13th, 15th and 16th.   The forecast is showing it will likely be -Clear- on these days but just because the skies are clear doesn't mean the skies will be steady for astronomy.  Of course astronomy is completely dependent upon a cloudless sky...  we can't magically see through clouds but astronomy is also severely affected by air currents and convection currents as well as clouds that are not in the visible spectrum.  Clouds in the infrared spectrum can also negatively impact the quality of the skies for astronomy. 

I never did finish writing about our Christmas trip to Manhattan so I should try to get back to that now since I am feeling well enough to write at the moment.   I came home from Manhattan with COVID and have been struggling with this virus and complications since then.  (We are now a week into March!)   As if that hasn't been enough to knock me down, I'm also now dealing with a significant re-injury to my extensive spinal injuries which may or may not be related to long-COVID inflammation.  I've had problems with COVID inflammation in other bouts of COVID so I'm leaning toward this spinal problem being triggered by the same.   So, for more than two months, I have been mostly couch-bound.  Needless to say, I never did finish writing about our trip to Manhattan with Lukey and Kenzie.  I'll get back to that now. Our pre-Christmas trip to Manhattan was so long ago at this point that I've forgotten about many of the details of this trip.  Maybe some of the details

F or the past few years, I've been going back and forth on whether to purchase a little mount and tripod that can automatically track the sun.  This upcoming solar eclipse nudged me to go ahead and purchase this little piece of gear of convenience.  The solar eclipse happens very quickly so any automated gear will help.  I want to get as many exceptional photos as possible during this very short couple of minutes and this will likely be my last total solar eclipse of my lifetime. This mount with its lightweight tripod is quite small and lightweight which is nice.  Another nice feature is that it is relatively inexpensive for an automatic tracking mount.   This particular mount is made by Skywatcher and is called the SolarQuest.  After leveling this mount, you simply turn it on.  It will automatically connect to satellites to attain the necessary GPS data and then it will slew to the sun automatically and begin tracking the sun.  You can't get easier than that! This nice little

T his morning, Sheila and I picked up her dad so we could drive him to the airport.  He's heading to DeSantisland for a long visit with some family, friends and Disney.  This part of our trip went relatively well but it was not without a few concerning problems. While I was moving my medications and ice packs to the car for our drive northward toward Burlington, my right leg kept buckling under me.  In an instant, periodically, I was briefly losing the ability to control my leg.  This worsened the longer we were away from home.  Losing control of your legs when you have a spinal issue is not a good thing.  It is not good physically.  It is not good mentally.  It is not good emotionally.  This was a new development that is a bit concerning.   Unfortunately, I've been down this road before when I was originally recovering from my first and second line-of-duty spinal injuries.  At times various times after my injuries, I could not move my legs nor could I walk.  Regardless, this p