Wednesday 20th: Mods and sods.

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A bright, but cloudy day. With not much chance of solar viewing between the clouds. I have been tidying the observatory and still have minor jobs to do. Sealing around doors, fitting water bars, etc. To stop driven rain coming in. The damp plywood, which turned black in winter, now shows much reduced moisture content on the meter.

The dome has been remarkably waterproof so far. With no damp spots on the floor regardless of often heavy rain and strong winds. The curved outer segments, which I applied to the top ring, worked a treat. Greatly reducing draughts and stopping the rain from collecting on the top ring in the SW. 

I'd forgotten that I had fitted the missing northern floor board because it had been hiding under lumps of wood. The equipment shelves are proving quite practical so far. Though a third, upper shelf would make better sense to avoid bending to select eyepieces from the smaller containers.

With the dewshield removed I had much more dome clearance for the 7" objective. While the focuser had poor clearance from the top ring in its southern pointing arc. So I shoved the main tube 4" up through the opened rings and clamped it tight again. Then I removed the upper, offset weight stalk and loaded the lower one instead. The idea was to give a greater tail end bias in balance and it worked. The 6" H-a refractor was still balanced.

After freeing both worms I could confirm I had neutral balance in all telescope positions. A few trial slews ensured there was no imbalance or tight worms. It rained in the afternoon.

Thursday: 46F. Dark grey overcast weather but quite mild. Worked on the main [entrance] doors to reinforce them and increase security. It stayed dry just long enough to use the bench saw outside. A shopping trip produced a new 1m length of M16 galvanized studding for the offset weight stalk. M12 was probably fine but looked too spindly to my eyes.

Friday: Fitted a length of M16 studding in place of the 12mm offset stalk while I waited for the promised sunshine. Cloud and wind coming from the SE like the sun. Few clearances and poor seeing. Though I was able to confirm the dark filament's progress across the disk. Nothing in WL [white light.] No proms visible so far. The cloud overhead is now coming from the NW! Two very distinct layers. Then completely overcast! Turned my attention to making a third, larch, accessories shelf.

14.30pm Lunch over. Still far too much cloud. Poor seeing with heavy, thermal, image disturbance. Very odd to see cloud layers traveling rapidly in opposite directions.

15.00pm 45/40F. In/out. Still very cloudy with a few short breaks. By the time I dash to the eyepiece the clearance is already over. The solar prism heat-sink is quite literally cold.

The eyepieces are much more accessible now I have three shelves and can all be easily put back into secure storage. The snap-on lids can be dropped over the boxes just to keep the dew off while I am in the observatory. It hasn't proved necessary to mark the lids as to contents. Repeated habit soon teaches even an old dog new tricks.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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