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Wednesday 29th, 41F outside 43F inside the dome. Max solar altitude about 17° today.
10.30: Rather overcast with some teaser blue patches, except where the sun is. Managed to briefly center on the AR in NW quadrant just above the solar equator. Then left the drives running.
Opening the dome to expose the 6" produced a dew haze on the back of the rear element. So now was my chance to wrap two, new dew bands around the objective cell and base of the dewshield. I have a longer Kendrick and an Astrozap connected to the HitechAstro controller.
No effect on the dew after ten minutes. Turned up the control knobs to "ten past." Bands just beginning to feel warm inside now.
The Sun is completely obscured by cloud now. Though it hasn't seemed to make any difference to internal dew before today. Even when it was bright and felt warm on my face. The dew circle is just beginning to shrink very slowly. Another ten minutes and the spot is still shrinking slowly but the doublet, lens gap is now steamed up!
I need to buy another power strip of sockets! I have eight plugs connected now. None of them is a big drain but they all need connecting. AWR drives PS, dew heater PS, focuser motor drive, etalon motor drive, lights, computer monitor, laptop charger, LED desk lamp, so far.
It's all a mess of wires dangling all over the mounting and desk. Some of it needs to be within reach of the USB3 strip. None of the little boxes of electronics has an eyelet or any other device for hanging. It has to be a zip tie or hanging from the connected leads.
It's all a mess of wires dangling all over the mounting and desk. Some of it needs to be within reach of the USB3 strip. None of the little boxes of electronics has an eyelet or any other device for hanging. It has to be a zip tie or hanging from the connected leads.
Sun teasing again through the clouds! Capturing 1000 frame videos 800 x 600 of the sunspot. 1.2ms. 640x480 420+fps at 1.0ms. Lots of smaller dark spots to the south. Quite stable seeing when the sun is visible but thin cloud constantly drifting across the image.13.20 I'll leave the dew heaters on over lunch to see if it clears the fogging between the objective elements. I badly need to warm up myself! 46F and breezy in the dome. I forgot to put on my old, down jacket.
15:00 Back in the dome but I didn't rush back because of the cloud. Now wearing two down jackets instead of none this morning. Salopettes plus snow boots complete the wardrobe. The heater bands feel warm on the outside. Interstitial dew now gone. Captured some proms in a brief flash of sunshine. Rainbow artifacts are from overdoing it in PhotoFiltre.
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