1.09.2022 Afternoon imaging AR3089

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Thursday 1st Sept. Warm, still and cloudless. Seeing is boiling and softer than ever.  I have draped some white sacking over the bottom of the slit to cover the metal flashing, the black rubber wind skirt and the plywood obs. wall. No visible difference on the monitor. 

Since something changes after the first capture. It may be internal to the instrument. Or it has something to do with opening the shutters to let the sun into the dome. 

 Dome inside and outside in the shade: 74/68F.

 16.16 First and only recognisable image so far. 

The following images were just smudges.

16.59 The effect of draping a white, lightweight tarpaulin from the slit down the SW facing observatory wall.

Following the rough draping of the white curtain of material the image steadied considerably. Not completely and it didn't sharpen the image as much as I would have liked. 

 The lightweight, white tarpaulin does not register a rise in temperature in sunshine. Being low cost and strong it can be brought out and draped as needed. Better than painting the building white and drawing attention to itself. 

 The foliage of trees and shrubs is steadily rising to cover the western wall in shade. This will eventually block all afternoon sunshine falling on the two story observatory.

 17.36 After a pause: I had opened the upstairs doors to what was once the balcony. About a meter square. It now opens to the inside of the larger building.

 

 

 

 

 17.44 Not the fine detail I was hoping for. The sky is still responsible for some of the seeing conditions.

 

 

 

 

 

   17.51 The trees are near.

 

 

 

I kept on capturing videos until the trees intervened around local 18.15 CET. There was no improvement in final image quality. Thanks to the shading, the live image on the monitor went from boiling to merely simmering and distorting. The images went from a hopeless smudge to rather coarse and artificial. The tarpaulins remained cool to the touch. The plywood shutters were hot throughout. Convection currents, from the shutters, may have been drifting across the open observation slit. There was no wind today to blow them away. 

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