Rings

by Chuck May 11, 2012

Astronomy Observation Record

 

Date: 5-10-2012 Time: 9:00 p.m. Location: Brambly Hill
Instrument: Northstar Aperture: 76mm Focal length: 700mm
Eyepiece/Magnification: 32/22 17/41 13/ 8/
Transparency: Seeing:
Conditions: Cold

 

Object Notes

Venus

Venus is usually visible when I set the scope up, so tonight I indulge myself with a glance as I set up. The crescent is getting smaller, but is quite easy to resolve. There was some blur to the air tonight.

Saturn

The main reason for heading out tonight. The rings stood out clear and bright though there is little tilt to them right now. After half an hour of looking I started to see a suggestion of banding at high power. I wasn't able to keep the planet in the field of view long enough to take a good look.

Katie came out and joined me for a while. She agreed that the view was worth the time.

After Katie went in I tried some experiments with the Northstar system. I was never able to get the system to align, but I did find that using the hand controller I was able to keep objects centered with better accuracy. Unfortunately, by the time I figured this out Saturn was behind a tree.

I headed in at 11:00, really about the time viewing was getting good. But I was cold and out of the things that I could find in the sky.

Tags:

Backyard Astronomy

Back to basic

by Chuck April 24, 2012

Astronomy Observation Record

 

Date: 4-22-2012 Time: 10:00 p.m. Location: Brambly Hill
Instrument: Northstar Aperture: 76mm Focal length: 700mm
Eyepiece/Magnification: 32/22 17/41
Transparency: Average Seeing: Excellent
Conditions: Cool, no wind.

 

Object Notes

Leo Cluster

Tried for a long time to find the Leo clusters but didn't have any success. Finally figured out I was looking in the wrong place -- what I thought was Regulus was actually Mars.

Mars

Easily resolvable into a red disk. There was a suggestion of lightness toward the pole, but I think that might have been wishful seeing on my part.

Mizar & Alcor

So whenever I'm feeling like I can't see anything I like to point my 'scope at these two stars. It's almost magical the way they split from one star, to two stars, and finally to three.

Called it an early night and headed in. Need to practice finding objects in the sky for a while.

Tags:

Backyard Astronomy

Planetary bodies

by Chuck April 22, 2012

Astronomy Observation Record

 

Date: 4-22-2012 Time: 9:30 - 10:30 p.m. Location: Brambly Hill
Instrument: Northstar Aperture: 76mm Focal length: 700mm
Eyepiece/Magnification: 32/22 17/41 13/54 8/88
Transparency: Average Seeing: Good/Excellent
Conditions: Cool, low winds. Some high clouds

 

Object Notes

Venus

Started with Venus at dusk. Very bright against evening sky. Showed a definite crescent shape at medium magnification.

Mars

Mars looked as red as I've ever seen it to the naked eye. Featureless red disk through telescope at all magnifications.

Saturn

Saturn showed as a yellowish circle with "ears" at low power. AS I stepped up the magnification the view just kept getting better and better. At 87X I could only hold it in the eyepiece for about 30 seconds or so. Best view was at 54X with the 13mm eyepiece. Good detail between the rings and the planetary disk but not moving too fast through the field of view.

Mizar & Alcor

Stopped briefly at Mizar and Alcor. Always pleased at the way it keeps splitting. At low power Mizar is an elongated oval. At medium power and above it resolves into a nice pair of stars. At 87X I wasn't able to hold Alcor and Mizar in the field of view at the same time.

Cor Caroli

Ended the night splitting Cor Caroli. At low power it showed as a double, but at medium and high power it appeared as two separate blue-white stars. The primary shows double the size of the secondary, and is quite a bit brighter.

 

I tried to find M94 -- but I need to spend some time figuring out how my 'scope compares to the finder views in "Turn Left."

Tags:

Backyard Astronomy

Sunny Sunday

by Chuck April 8, 2012

Today was beautiful -- sunny and warm and just right for getting started on spring planting. I headed out to the greenhouse to take advantage of the weather and get some plants started so that they're ready to to be May flowers.

First I spent a little time cleaning up the greenhouse -- moving the over-wintering plants on to one bench, watering them, picking up dead and fallen leaves, generally tidying up the place. I didn't spend as much time out there this winter as I did last winter, so it's not quite as neat as it was last spring. I keep telling myself to go out there more often, but I haven't made it out much. That should change now that I have some new plants started.

This year I bought a big bag of potting soil to use to start plants, instead of using my usual mixture of compost and dirt. The stuff that I mix up tends to have big lumps in it that get in the way of planting teeny-tiny seeds. I also picked up two cell packs from the new greenhouse and hydroponics store in Monroe. These cell packs are made out of plastic probably twice as thick as the plastic in the ones that I bought last year at Charlie's. I think that these are made more to reuse than the ones from Charlie's.

I filled four flats with the potting soil and then planted up some flowers. I'm trying to plant all of the miscellaneous annuals that we'll need for the farm this year. I planted a flat of petunias and a flat of snapdragons, although I'm not 100 percent sure what we'll do with 72 snapdragon plants. Planting the itty-bitty petunia and snapdragon seeds was a challenge, but I used a folded piece of cardstock for a planting funnel and didn't worry if more than one seed made it into each cell. I can thin the plants later when they've got a good start.

Next I'll plant some allysum and some lobelia so that we have filler plants for the gardens. I picked up a package of white and a package of purple allysum, and I planted some blue and some multi-colored lobelia. 

Tags:

Farm

Batch 16

by Chuck November 30, 2011

Argh!

This was a full table with my brew worksheet and brew-day log. But the raw HTML editor ate my post, so now I have to redo the whole thing. Here's part, and you'll get the rest when I get back to my paper brew log.

Brew Log and Worksheet
Brewer: Chuck Bigham Brew Date: Nov. 27, 2011
Beer Name: #2 Batch Code: PA-16
Beer Style: American pale ale Total Qty.: 5 gallons
Grain Bill
Quantity Gravity Ingredient G @CLR CU
6 lbs.   Pale malt extract      
1 lb.   20L Crystal malt      
1/4 lb.   Cara-Pils malt      
1/4 lb.   Wheat malt      
Hop Bill
Qty. oz./g Hop Variety α Acid % AAU P/L Boil time Utilization IBU
1 oz. Yakima Northern Brewer 8.5% 8.5 L 60    
1/2 oz. German Hallertau 3.3 1.65 L 15    
1/2 oz. German Hallertau 3.3 1.65 L 5    
Fermentation
Stage Date Gravity Plato % Alcohol Temp Time Vessel
Primary 11/28/2011 1.042     70   6-gallon carboy
Mash Yeast: Wyeast 1098 British Ale
Water: Primo bottled Starter: Smack pack
Treatment: None Priming:
  Notes:
Mash type: Specialty grains  
Total lbs.: 1 1/2  
Strike water qty:  
   Qt./Lb. @  F  
Boil length: 60 minutes  
Finings: None  

   

Log
Time Temp Notes
1:47 74 Added specialty grains to kettle and started heating.

Tags:

Brewing

MC Panel -- Requirements

by Chuck November 23, 2011

Just to make sure that I know what I’m doing, here are the requirements that I’d like to meet with the control panel.

  • Must have the same form factor as the original front panel. By my measurements, that means 3.5 inches by 2.20 inches.
  • 16-key keypad.
  • 2 LED digits. 
  • Serial port to connect to PC using a BUB USB board.
  • Power for the Membership Card should come from the USB port, but there should also be a simple way to hook up an external power supply.
  • When the serial port is connected the front panel should be able to understand the simple command language that I developed for the serial port adapter.
  • If the serial port is not connected the front panel should act like a hex keypad connected to port 4, and do the standard DMA load.
  • Should have expansion connectors so that additional boards can be stacked.

So keep those in mind as I’m working on the front panel. Hopefully I’ll be able to make all of these work.

Tags:

Electronics

MC Panel–Building a new front panel for the Membership Card

by Chuck November 23, 2011

“Bee Dee” on the Yahoo COSMAC ELF group suggested that we document the progress of our various ELF2K and Membership Card projects with photos and videos to share on the Web. I’m not so much with video, but I can take a picture or two and write up what I’m doing.

I’ve been working on improving the serial port adapter that I build using a Picaxe 20X2. I showed the new version to the group on the mailing list, and suddenly I had a new idea to work on. I was inspired by a posting on the mailing list by Lee Hart – replacing the stock front panel of the Membership Card with a new keypad and LED digit display controlled by a Picaxe microprocessor. It sounded like a good idea to me, that is if I could get everything to fit on the small footprint offered by the Membership Card.

I’m going to be writing up my progress as I go along, providing a screen shot or photograph or two, and hopefully sharing what I learn. Right  now, I’m thinking that I’m going to have to jump through these hoops:

  • Figure out if I can get a Picaxe 40X2, a 16-key keypad, and two LED displays on a board the size of the Membership Card.
  • Come up with a tentative assignment for the input/output ports on the Picaxe.
  • Build a version of the circuit on a breadboard to make sure that it works.
  • Write software to make the whole package work.
  • Layout a PC board and get it manufactured.
  • Build a prototype and see if I got it right.

Hopefully I’ll keep engaged on this project until I get it done. Making a commitment to writing it up should help with that.

Tags:

Electronics

Double vision

by Chuck July 5, 2011

Since we the fireworks in the neighborhood were keeping us up anyway we decided that hauling the ‘scope out wouldn’t be a bad thing, it would give us something to do until after midnight when the booming fades away.

I spend some time with the Sky and Telescope star chart tonight looking for something interesting to see. There is an article in there about double stars, so that’s what I decided to look for.

The seeing tonight was the best that I’ve seen, clear and crisp views of the stars. Unfortunately, my star hopping wasn’t good enough to find 95 Herc, the particular double that I was looking for. I did see M13 as I was sweeping the sky, so that’s something.

The best part of the night was looking at Mizar and Alcor. First with the naked eye, where they are visible (to me, anyway) as a single point of light. Next, the 7x50 binoculars show them clearly as a double star with a third star going along for the ride. Then finally I pointed the 76mm reflector towards them and we could see Mizar’s close companion.

I know that Mizar and the close companion are actually a double-double system, but it was fun to see the way the view changed with different optics, and to see the kids figure out what they were seeing.

Tags:

Backyard Astronomy

Second Sailing

by Chuck July 2, 2011

Dana’s parents went out on Saturday to take advantage of the short crabbing season that we’re having here, so Dana and I decided to take our boat out and meet them on the water – hoping that a crab or two might fall off their boat and into ours.

Originally we thought that we would take our kids with us, but they decided to go with Ron and Sue on the Salty Lady. Dana I ended up taking Odyssey out by ourselves again.

It was almost a pleasant day out on the water, except for the lack of wind. Mostly we drifted around, running the motor whenever we needed to dodge a crab pot that the current was setting us toward. We did stop for  a while to talk to Ron and Sue and the kids.

Here’s today’s complaint – people who run at speed past boats at anchor. Three or four times while we were tied up to Salty Lady some jerk came spinning by at speed only a 10 or 20 yards away. Odyssey and the Lady would bob like corks, trying to tangle their railings, and Dana and I would be fending off with both feet and a hand to keep us from smashing together. Just because you can run your boat fast anywhere you want doesn’t mean that you should…

We pottered about, heading in about 5:00 p.m. The current was running fast up river; I had to try three times before I could get us close enough to the dock for Dana to get out. Made a few people nervous, but didn’t hit anyone.

On the way home we swung by the marina where the kids were and dropped off a cool chest. Two crabs came home with Joe and Kate. Made a great dinner with fresh greens from the garden.

Tags:

Sailing

Sailing Sunday

by Chuck June 13, 2011

Dana and I went sailing for the first time this year on Sunday. It was quiet, relaxing, exhilarating, and exhausting -- just like a day on the water should be.

It was just Dana and I again, Katie had a bad head cold and Joey had some homework that he wanted to work on, though he did help me put the lines on the boat again. He's downright useful a that sort of thing nowadays. Load, pack, hook up, and go took about an hour, but I wasn't hurrying.

Towing the boat is remarkably stressful since it jumped off the hitch last year. Everytime I go over a bump I glance in the rearview mirror to make sure that Odyssey is still with us. The leaf springs on the trailer have a loud squeak in them, that didn't help to hear as the trailer settled back down after a bump.

The toughest challenge to overcome this trip was figuring out how to pay for launching and parking. We thought we had to pay for launching and parking ($11), but it turns out we only had to pay for launching ($8), the first 24 hours of parking are included. Unfortunately, we didn't bring change for $8.00, and the machine doesn't give change. Through fits and starts, we finally managed to give the machine the $8.00 we needed to for our launching ticket, after we managed to give it (and lose) $10.00.

In we went, and off sailing we went. The wind was, as usual, fluky. Stiff, soft, and non-existent by turns. It always pleasant though, out on the water, so we had a good time.

Tags:

Sailing

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