Day: August 5, 2012

Daytime Observing: Part Two

Just before one o’clock, I took a break from prepping the purple bedroom for ceiling painting and went down to the lower patio to try some solar observing with the XT8.  The telescope was still in the shade (barely) but could be tilted into the sunlight out of the shadow of the house.  This created the ideal observing site, for me at least, as I could stand mostly in the shade and still use the scope to observe the sun.

I removed the dust caps and installed the solar filter on the end of the tube.  I selected a 28mm eyepiece, which would show me the entire solar disk.  I looked down the tube to the ground and used the silhouette of the scope to orient on the sun (the smaller the shadow, the better aligned).  Bingo!  Found our closest stellar neighbor on the first try.

I could clearly see six sunspots.  I tried the 15mm and the 9mm, but became disappointed in my inability to achieve a crystal clear focus when I zoomed into one of the sunspots.  I nudged Terry away from his computer in the band room to see what he thought of the various eyepieces and how well they focused on the sunspots.  He seemed to have the same experience I did.  The 28mm provided the best and crispest view.

Sunspots05Aug2012
Sunspots for Sunday 8/5/2012 courtesy NASA’s SOHO site (click image for more information)

After a few minutes out in the heat, I decided enough was enough and brought the telescope back into the house, carefully putting away the solar filter in its protective cover and box.

Daytime Observing: Part One

I got stood up on my second date with Dob thanks to the clouds.  I just wish the clouds had produced some much needed rain to relieve the extended drought Kansas and the rest of the Midwest is suffering under this summer.  I woke myself up in the middle of the night, checked the night sky and could barely see the moon for the clouds, so stargazing was a bust.

Even later, when I work up again (around four thirty), I peered towards the eastern horizon and could almost see Jupiter and Venus through the thinning clouds.  An hour later, I checked out the back side of the house and I could clearly see the moon.  The clouds had left.

I eyed my small ETX-90, huddling in ‘time-out’ in the corner behind the couch.  I thought about the XT8 downstairs in the band room.  I debated with myself which one would be easiest to setup outside to observe the moon after the sunrise.  The Meade is lighter, but requires the battery pack, Autostar hand controller and alignment.  The Orion I could just carry outside and pull into position.  The Orion won that coin toss handily.

I setup on the lower patio next to the hot tub.  I grabbed my case of eyepieces and my Sky & Telescope Moon Map.  I wanted to find a couple of more lunar features listed on the Astro Quest.  With a 25mm eyepiece inserted into the focuser drawtube, I centered the moon in the field of view.  Then I checked the finderscope’s alignment and fine-tuned it to match what I could see through the telescope.

Sea of Tranquility (courtesy Wikipedia)

I easily located the first feature: the Sea of Tranquility.

Next, I wanted to locate the Julius Caesar crater, which just happened to be located on the western edge of Mare Tranquillitatis.

I switched out eyepieces, using a 15mm and a 9mm.  I attempted to use a 4mm, but could not get a clear focus or possibly enough light to discern any lunar features.  I returned to the 15mm to do some close observations of the Julius Caesar crater.

I eventually tried to find two other features: the Alpine Valley and the Straight Wall, but I will need to wait for the terminator to create shadows in those areas before I can confirm the observation.

I left the XT8 outside, putting all the dust covers and caps back in place.  I plan to take some time this afternoon and do some solar observing as well, since we are at the peak of the sun’s eleven year sunspot cycle.

Purple Haze Phase

Purple Haze
Spare Bedroom #2 – Purple Haze (click image for rest of album)

I can thank my daughter for the choice of wall colors in my library and the other spare bedroom on the top floor of our home.  As you can see above, my daughter transformed an otherwise boring eggshell colored wall to eye-popping purple.  Her other spare bedroom, which I took over as my library, she foreshadowed in green, perhaps predicting her eventual defection to the University of North Texas? (Go Mean Green!).

In the green library, with the brown lounger, on hardwood floors (Aug 2011)

I received news last week that my son and his wife will be visiting us the second weekend of August. This finally spurred me out of my summertime torpidity and got me to cleaning out the aforementioned purple bedroom. I asked Terry if we could get the hardwood floors installed before Derek and Royna arrive. He countered with “I need to paint the ceiling before I put the new floor in.” Why, you might ask? Well, because my daughter, with the impetuousness (and impatience) of youth, did not protect the white ceiling from her purple paintbrush.

Purple Haze

I spent a couple of evenings last week sorting through empty boxes; old wrapping paper; even older clothes (a leftover tuxedo my son wore in high school ten years ago for a choir uniform); baseball and football trading cars; parts of a RC car; a skateboard; some stuffed animals; a laundry basket full of books; etc., etc.  Some of it even made it all the way down three sets of stairs to the basement storage room.  A few items just made it across the hallway into the master bedroom or the library.

I found the floor by late afternoon on Saturday, enough to sweep.  Terry brought up the five-in-one ladder so he could start taping off the walls from the ceiling.  This morning, I picked up where he left off and began putting rolled brown paper over the top of the first layer of painters tape to which we will eventually tape some plastic drop clothes.  Terry should have the ceiling painted today.

Then it’s down to the floors.

Movie Review: They Were Expendable (1945)

They Were Expendable (1945)

3 out of 5 stars

Not exactly what I expected from a Ford/Wayne film.  Not sure why Donna Reed even bothered to appear in it.

Filmed during WWII, but released after the war ended.  I just didn’t connect with the characters.  I need to find a better or different film to get a feel for our fight in the Pacific (outside of Pearl Harbor films).

It felt war weary, although it was about the Battle of the Philippines early in WWII.

Similar to The Desert Fox, the musical score made heavy uses of the Navy Song “Anchors Aweigh” and the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”  I did tear up when I heard “Taps” played on a harmonica for a slap-dash funeral of two crewman of Wayne’s destroyed PT boat.