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Tuesday 5th Feb: We were promised some sunshine so I set up the telescope on the sun and left the mounting tracking. The total number of completely clear moments could be counted in seconds over the course of the morning. So I pottered around the observatory rewiring and doing odd jobs.
There is a tall "Eiffel Tower" of a prom at my 2 o'clock in the 45° elbow.
I now have the overhead white lights run from a single cable. Which falls nearly vertically from the center of the dome crossbar down to the mounting. There a clip maintains the cables close to the polar axis for minimum physical movement. The dome is rarely rotated beyond the E-S-W arc so the cable should never twist.
The USB cable for the Neximage5 is now similarly routed to avoid conflicts with the mounting and telescopes as it runs from the focuser, along the tube, down through the mounting, into the pier and down to the laptop. Clearing away all the visible cables has been a priority to avoid tripping over them or stretching them during long slews. False hopes. Read on.
I had to drag my builder's, 2-stretch ladder up to the veranda, push it through the slit and then down onto the observatory floor. One of the shutter ribs had begun to rub slightly on the observing slit top crossbar. A few seconds with a saw blade in the DeWalt oscillating tool soon cleared that problem. Then it was a reversal back down to the ground with the ladder to be stored away.
The sun has shown itself briefly, several times, as I enjoyed lunch at the computer. While looking over to the observatory from my dormer window.
A few brief spells of clarity pm.. I did a meridian flip and had to stop to remove the USB cable which became very tight. The lighting cable needed a little help to clear the dewshield too. I keep a 4' long alloy pipe in the obs. for just such eventualities to avoid having to use the stepladder.
16.00 41F, the low sun is teasing me now that I am back indoors. Not a completely wasted day though. With several odd jobs completed. Better to do them on a grey day than waste rare sunlight. There were a couple of short showers which needed the shutters to be closed. Tomorrow's forecast has changed to showers with sunny periods. So there's still hope.
But, alas, all hopes were dashed by continuous rain on Wednesday.
Wednesday: I have ordered a Herschel solar prism [or wedge.] Not despite the descent into the minimum of the 11 year solar cycle but precisely because of it. A "blank" sun usually refers to a lack of obvious spots. This does not mean that the sun is completely smooth and without any variation at all. On the smaller scale there are surface features resembling cells. In the absence of spots then I must make do with the micro rather than the macro. More details when the prism arrives.
A few brief spells of clarity pm.. I did a meridian flip and had to stop to remove the USB cable which became very tight. The lighting cable needed a little help to clear the dewshield too. I keep a 4' long alloy pipe in the obs. for just such eventualities to avoid having to use the stepladder.
16.00 41F, the low sun is teasing me now that I am back indoors. Not a completely wasted day though. With several odd jobs completed. Better to do them on a grey day than waste rare sunlight. There were a couple of short showers which needed the shutters to be closed. Tomorrow's forecast has changed to showers with sunny periods. So there's still hope.
But, alas, all hopes were dashed by continuous rain on Wednesday.
Wednesday: I have ordered a Herschel solar prism [or wedge.] Not despite the descent into the minimum of the 11 year solar cycle but precisely because of it. A "blank" sun usually refers to a lack of obvious spots. This does not mean that the sun is completely smooth and without any variation at all. On the smaller scale there are surface features resembling cells. In the absence of spots then I must make do with the micro rather than the macro. More details when the prism arrives.
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