28.4.22

28.04.2022 The big [dome] lift could be possible.

 *

 Thursday 28th 36F. Early mist clearing to yet more sunshine. 

15.02 Afternoon imaging. Seeing conditions are soft and mobile. With a large white patch of sky around the sun. Best image so far.


 Access to the back garden has been improved dramatically since my wife died. Being free to cut back and lower the boundary hedges has widened the drive by about a meter. Previously it was difficult to drive the car in and out without the mirrors being caught in the branches of the hedges! Now there would be no problem bringing in the lorry with its mounted crane. 

 In theory, the new dome could be lifted onto the waiting building. Unfortunately there are still impediments to such a lift. The dome is full of timber and other non-essential stuff. It was a handy place to quickly store things while I worked on tidying the house and garden. Which, after nearly a month of full time work, is still ongoing. It would take less than an hour to clear the dome completely.

 17.24 Back after a trip in the car.

 The new dome's rotation rollers have not yet been fitted. The original plan was to lay a thick ring of plywood on top of the expanded building. This ring was to ensure a stable and level base on which to mount the rollers.

 The present top ring is a fourteen sided ring of 2x6. Which would form gaps on the flats inside the round dome. Making it unnecessarily draughty. Adding packing arcs to close the gaps afterwards would be awkward and probably messy.

 There is also the matter of lowering the dome directly onto the rollers. This would require very high precision in lowering. Literally a centimetre concentricity. Which would be very demanding on the crane driver. Even though he would have radio control. And, he would probably be inside the observatory during the lift to be close to the action. The slightest swing or a breeze would make lowering to this level of accuracy impossible. Possibly leading to roller or dome skirt damage. 

 I think I will need a tapered [timber] support structure which will aid the final lowering. T-stands of timber would work. Wood screwed onto the building top ring. They would have a slope on the outside. Whilst being the same height as the rollers. This will protect the rollers from the narrow edge of the dome as it lowers. While simultaneously guiding the dome into concentricity with the top of the building. 

17.37 AR2995 and the receding pair AR2994 & 4.

 That said, it is not unusual to lift much larger and much heavier objects. To such fine accuracy that fixing bolts can be accommodated. Usually using a tapered crowbar as a guide. I would have to talk to the crane hire business as to the precision they can manage in reality.

 Then there is the matter of removing the old dome first. The crane could easily manage this too. Provided there was somewhere safe to put it down. It must not impede the lifting of the new dome. This just requires I clear the entire parking area. I can then dismantle the old dome at leisure while it is safely on the ground with access on all sides. A matter of unscrewing the plywood segments via literally hundreds of stainless steel bolts.

  It would be great to have the new dome in place. If only to protect the building from the now-undersized, leaking, plywood dome. I would rather avoid another winter with the building and its contents unprotected. The work required to complete the details might be time consuming but can be done later.

 I need to make and fit new steering rollers. Though the original eight would be perfectly adequate in the meantime. Then there is the dome, friction drive roller. Which will probably be essential to be able to turn the larger and heavier dome. The manual, crank and roller drive work so perfectly, with the old dome, that it makes rotation effortless. The larger dome will provide a lower gear ratio. Making rotation even easier.

 The telescopes and massive mounting would need to be removed prior to lifting the new dome. The risk of damage is simply too great to leave them in place. Besides, even if I use the same pier it will have to be moved bodily to the centre of the larger building. Trying to do this with the telescopes and mounting, still on top, would be suicidal! 

 17.54 Still trying. The image is constantly defocusing and there is thermal "vibration."

18.15 Thin, high cloud is dimming the image now.

 Whoops! I forgot to mention the spherical triangular closures on either side of the shutters. These have not yet been completed. They can be fitted from inside the new dome/building.

 It would be good for me to have my new dome project underway again. It has completely come to a standstill. I need an escape from the tedium of constantly tidying the house and garden after the loss of my wife. The creativity and invention required to complete the enlarged observatory is the perfect distraction. I could then relax and do my solar imaging when conditions allow.


*

23.4.22

23.04.2022 One early image of spot group.

 *

Saturday 23rd 46F, bright sunshine but breezy from the NE. I cleared a lot of files earlier to avoid full drive notifications. I also update the ZWO camera driver.

0820 [CET] First image. Some bodily, low frequency, thermal agitation.

 I am struggling to improve the PST etalon sweet spot. Asymmetric detail and brightness cannot be tuned out.





*

21.4.22

21.04.2022 Imaging [badly!]

*
 
Thursday  21st Late afternoon imaging. SharpCap kept complaining about a lack of memory. 
 
When I did capture some amazing video then ImPPG had problems. Saving as Tiffs they could not be opened by Photofiltre! 

Out of desperation I did a screen grab from ImPPG and processed that in PhotoFiltre. All the detail is lost in the heavy cropping!

SharpCap was downloaded and repaired and is still broken! It won't close and is showing Live View without the camera control panel.





*

18.4.22

18.04.2022 Solar imaging.

*

 Monday 18th Another sunny day. 

 Mid afternoon in "thermally" seeing. With thin, high cloud. The whole image is visibly shaking at a higher frequency. Over 30Hz?

 The AR2993/4 spots are moving away from the limb. Flares are reported. AR2994 is a double despite the separation to the third spot. [left lower umbra]

 15.27 16-bit capture.

 Early captures were much steadier and clearer than now. Probably a waste of time continuing under these seeing conditions. Stepped Noise Robust from 2 to 8 without any obvious difference. The sky around the sun is increasingly white with thin, high cloud. 

16.09 Normal and inverted.  The fine detail in the inverted image is remarkable.








 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
*

17.4.22

17.04.2022 Getting back into it.

 *

 Sunday 17th April 2022. 

 My 75th birthday and a fortnight since my wife died. 

There is no right time to return to imaging the sun. I wanted to get out of the house for a while. So here we are:

AR2993 and 2994 on the NE limb. No number for the third spot yet. This is producing brighter protuberances.

The seeing is shaky and the clarity variable. Things seem to be getting worse.

I tried the PST BF5 but it produced nothing better than the Lunt B1200S2 blocking filter.

The second image is much later. Nearly 17.00 [CET] Captured in 16 bit. Rather than 8 bit.

The sun is still quite high. So there is still hope for late afternoon steadiness of the atmosphere.

I kept trying as the afternoon wore on but the image became thermally agitated as the sun sank closer to the trees. 

 

 

 

 

*

11.4.22

11.04.2022 The reason for my lack of recent posts:

 *

 Some of you may be wondering why I haven't been posting here lately. 

 I am afraid my wife, Shirley, after 55 years of happy marriage, has died very suddenly of cancer on the 3rd of April 2022.

 She had lost weight and went into hospital to be checked out. The cancer was confirmed by CT scan as widespread and untreatable. She died quietly at home within ten days of diagnosis. While receiving the kind and wonderful care of the mobile nursing staff and home help service.

 My interest in solar imaging and observatory building is slowly returning. I hope to be active again in the future. As I slowly come to terms with my great loss. She always supported my outlandish, observatory building projects. I will always miss her presence.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Regards,
Chris