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Saturday 11th 08.00 57/55F, early clear skies with a few small clouds crossing from the west. Seeing very soft and misty without any of the usual detail.
Only one cut-out by the AWR drives so far. Had to reset Dec direction to Negative yet again to avoid a nose down slew.
The drives keep forgetting to track. So that I have to click on Track/Solar/Enter repeatedly.
After Syncing on an eastern, horizontal object in Skycharts the telescope still missed the sun by miles on its first slew. Of course it did. Only a fool expects a different outcome after two years of NO-GOTO slews.
I have captured a number of 500 frame videos but still not enough definition to bring anything out by processing in AS!3 and ImPPG. Have repeatedly refocused without achieving greater clarity. Almost as if the optics were dewed. Removed the PST etalon and checked it. Removed the Lunt B1200 blocking filter and peered through that from both sides too. No obvious problems visible.
A couple of small pale spots near the east and west limbs but insignificant. Still struggling with serious lack of clarity.
Did a tour of the entire limb. No proms worth the effort of capturing.
9.00 Clarity improving but thermal agitation of the image increasing.
AWR Just cut out again! Now it is cycling endlessly off and on again. With a loud clonk each time. I have an LED desk lamp on the same multi-socket now to check if the mains connection is intermittent. The computer monitor has shown no signs of flickering during a cut-out. It is deliberately plugged into the same multi-socket as the drives. None of these is a heavy load.
9.00 Clarity improving but thermal agitation of the image increasing.
AWR Just cut out again! Now it is cycling endlessly off and on again. With a loud clonk each time. I have an LED desk lamp on the same multi-socket now to check if the mains connection is intermittent. The computer monitor has shown no signs of flickering during a cut-out. It is deliberately plugged into the same multi-socket as the drives. None of these is a heavy load.
9.10 Lots more and much larger clouds arriving now. Becoming windier as the seeing improves.
9.30 Going over to white light just for a change. The AWR drives just cut out for several seconds again. No sign of flicker on the lamp nor monitor. Seeing much improved but can't make anything of the results. Pale spots in white light in the west. Ridiculously spotty, over-sharpening coming out of AS!3. ImPPG can't undo the over-sharpening.
11.15. Rain stopped play.
9.30 Going over to white light just for a change. The AWR drives just cut out for several seconds again. No sign of flicker on the lamp nor monitor. Seeing much improved but can't make anything of the results. Pale spots in white light in the west. Ridiculously spotty, over-sharpening coming out of AS!3. ImPPG can't undo the over-sharpening.
11.15. Rain stopped play.
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