4.08.2021 Morning imaging, Afternoon woodwork.

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Wednesday 4th 58F, clear and bright sunshine. A spot of imaging to have a rest from the dome project. My back, hands and wrists are all complaining. Slightly too cool for comfort in the observatory.

09.08 [CET]  61F. The seeing is very soft again. Difficult to be sure of focus. I changed to the 2x GPC to see if it helped. It did.

ASCOM[AWR] tells me that COM3 does not exist. [Again!] So no planetarium support. [Again!]

09.20 Slow moving fluffy clouds have appeared. Coming from 2 directions. S&E. The seeing has improved dramatically! The problem is the sun is hidden. So I can't even manage a 5 second capture.

I had a look at the new dome while I was waiting for the sun to clear the clouds. It is running with condensation inside and out. Interestingly [?] the ladders leaning against the dome are sharply visible inside against the wetter areas. Very odd. The sun hasn't reached the dome yet due to the high hedges to the east. Overnight dew from radiation to the sky. The grass is sopping wet too.

09.36 The better seeing did not result in a better image. I am getting 100fps at 10m/s, 800x800 Mono8 with 100 gain in SharpCap.

09.44 A bit better but the seeing is now highly variable. Violent thermals between the clouds. Which are growing larger all the time.

I may have to return to manual work on the dome!

Theoretically the shutter are [almost] ready to be hung. Though it needs more laminations of the zenith board. Plus the half width zenith boards for the shutter tops. I can mock up something temporary for the bottoms of the shutters. This would give me much easier access with the shutters open. Without having to duck down through the open triangles. 

I have to support the considerable weight of each shutter while I fix the drawer slides. They have to be open to expose the screw holes in the slides. Even these are a problem. Size 4 is too small 5 too large to allow the slides to move. Thankfully I have a small collection of 25mm x 4.5.

 10.10 Giving up on the imaging. Too much cloud! Impossible to focus even when the sun is visible on the monitor.

Cut out a 12mm off-cut of ply to match the zenith board. Glued and clamped. Working on matching a board for the shutters.

11.30 Sun clear but seeing mushy. It continued that way. So I worked on the dome.

16.30 Seeing still mush. I have glued, clamped and screwed a third layer of 15mm ply to the 2x 12mm zenith board.

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