Lock Up Your Womens

Sorry,

now that the Explorer is totaled I've had to put the Buick station wagon back on the road

and we all know that chicks just love that car. Old, young, big, small, straight, lesbian, the Buick's attraction is universal and very powerful. I promise to drive it only when necessary and I also found my stick to beat them away, but I can't be held responsible for what happens.

I got a chance last night under clear skies to spend some time with Jupiter. There were 2 eclipse spots that traveled across the face of the planet in the early evening, seeing was pretty good and the telescope worked well. I was also treated to my first meteorite that streaked across the dome opening, very cool!

Work continues on the warm room mostly insulation and wiring. I installed the first 2" conduit to the observatory, this will be for all the USB and RS232 communication cables and there will be a second conduit for power cables in both 110 and 12 volt. We're keeping them separate to avoid any unwanted electrical noise interference.

Other then that I cleared the last of the trees off the road with my snow plow truck and I'm still waiting for the State Farm adjuster to show up. Hope it's soon, I'd love to get the driveway back.

That's all for now.

One Very Bad Storm and Two Bad Nights

I decided to start writing this blog with pen and paper in the dark with only candles for light

It's now just 6:00 am Wednesday Oct 27, I've been awake since around 4:00 am after hearing a loud snap and the sound of another tree crashing down. They have been falling all night long.

It all started with a phone call late Monday afternoon from Jim foretelling of a large storm moving my way, growing up in Minnesota I have become skeptical of the" WCCO radio run for the basement weather forecasting" but Jim's a pilot so I did somewhat heed his warning.

The precautions I took included site clean up, tarping the material pile and tarping the one uncompleted wall of the warm room. Actually, I felt very comfortable,the ice dam installation on the roof was done making the building pretty well water tight, I was feeling smart.

Early Tuesday morning.

I couldn't sleep with the sound of jet force winds howling through the woods and over the cabin, and I'm laying in bed worried that my site preparation was inadequate. Luckily, daylight revealed not much more then a few downed branches along with my overturned greenhouse and beat up tomato plants, so I dashed for my truck in the heavy rain to go check on the observatory.

Pulling up to the site it was very apparent I suck at tarping!I did get somewhat lucky and both tarps were at least still in the county. After a weak attempt to reinstall them in the heavy rain and wind I decided to run into town for breakfast and the county commissioner's meeting.

I was able to drive approximately 700 feet before finding the first downed tree blocking the road! Thanks to my advance planing I was now backing up the 700 feet to get my chainsaw out of the garage and during this part of the operation I managed to rip the drivers side mirror off the door by hooking it on a tree, now I'm really pissed off, I love this truck.

(Nothing cheers me up more then a 1/2 hour of cutting wood in the pouring rain) Finally it was 8:00 am and I was just sitting down for breakfast, 8:30 I'm at the meeting and then home by 12:30.

Returning to the cabin I noticed the wind had dropped and it wasn't raining so I went right back to re-tarping and this time it was going to stay on dam-it! Two hours later I was feeling better about my preparation and walking towards my truck when I looked back proudly at my work only to see a huge gust of wind from a different direction rip it all right back off. It was all I could do to just drive off and try not to cry.

Back in the cabin I went on line to check for weather updates only to find that all that work I had just done was in the eye of the storm and it was only going to get worse. They were talking about this storm as a hurricane that would break all recorded low barometric readings, so the cats and I knew what we were in for(we now share a brain).

I have sat through some very bad storms including a horrible ice storm two winters ago, but every storm is scary when you live under 2 giant white pines in a small cabin. The wind started to pick up along with the rain and the electricity flickered through out the early evening, never a good sign around here (remember this is a county that's going to hang fiber optics cable from poles, what morons. Sorry had to vent)

I was dog tired and went to bed around 9:30,we still had power but the wind was growing more fierce by the minute.

So now we're back to the start:

it's 4:00 am, I'm not sure how long the powers been out, it's cold and dark in the cabin and even the cats are nervous. That last falling tree sounded very close. It took me awhile to find a flashlight and light some candles. Looking out the kitchen window I could see something was wrong even in the pitch dark.

I opened the door, shining the flashlight up the driveway and to my surprise I found my truck smashed under a huge spruce tree. At this point and in this light it looked bent in half. Now all I could do is wait for sunrise to inventory all the damage. I wondered how bad is my truck? is the pontoon boat still tied to the dock? is the dome still on the observatory? are there trees on the observatory or warm room? how many trees are on the road? are there trees on our storage building? how long will I be without power?

A lot to think about in the cold dark cabin.

Funny, ripping the mirror off the door doesn't seem important anymore

Sad part is I think this car was going to be our first to break 300,000 miles,

now we will never know.

In daylight it was nice to see

everything held up well, observatory buildings were just fine, pontoon boat still on the dock and after sawing out the 3 miles to the storage building things were good there also. Just my poor truck which now has a squirrel running in and out because there is a half full bag of bird seed inside. He thinks he's in heaven.

It's been a rough few days in Paradise!

I have to say thanks to Arrowhead Electric, they do a great job under this kind of pressure, I might complain about my bill but they are here when needed.

Thank you all!

Wow Factor Setting In

Great strides last week,

Lester helped out early in the week with framing and siding that help stiffen the structure, we also installed 2 windows.

Jim arrived Friday afternoon and Pat Friday night so Saturday was a big day that started with reinstalling the telescope to it's pier (never a fun job) we finished out the daylight hours with siding, roof sheeting, ice dam and site clean up.

After dinner we attempted another polar alignment of the telescope, we have tyred this a few times before with no success but since then we have read more and felt confident, that confidence was quickly replaced with disappointment and the feeling we would never get it right.

To get something out of the night Jim went with point and hope method, it didn't take him long and Jupiter was in the eyepiece, I have to say that looking at Jupiter exceeded every expatiation I had, absolutely beautiful, we then spent time looking at the moon that was also stunning.

The construction continued on the warm room throughout the weekend right into the start of this week with great results.

The weather continues to hold and were just a few days away from being sealed up.

Custom glass block window just for fun.

Monday night after even more reading we finely got the polar alignment right, (goes to show even a blind squirrel finds a nut ever now and then). Thanks to Sam's work last week it took just a small wedge angle adjustment and with the proper set-up sequence it now works very well.

I also forgot that a few weeks ago Murmur Creek Observatory was added to the Amateur Astronomical Observatory site

This site was very helpful with our early research and is just fun to see all the different observatory builds, we thank them for adding us and if you get a chance have a look.

Wow Factor Setting In

Great strides last week,

Lester helped out early in the week with framing and siding which helped stiffen the structure and we also installed 2 windows.

Jim arrived Friday afternoon and Pat Friday night, so Saturday was a big day that started with re-installing the telescope to it's pier (never a fun job). We finished out the daylight hours with siding, roof sheeting, ice dam placement and site clean up.

After dinner we attempted another polar alignment of the telescope which we had tried a few times before with no success. Since then we had read more and felt more confident, however that confidence was quickly replaced with disappointment and the feeling we would never get it right!

To salvage something out of the night Jim went with the point and hope method, it didn't take him long and Jupiter was in the eyepiece! I have to say that looking at Jupiter exceeded every expatiation I had, it was absolutely beautiful. We then spent time looking at the moon which was also stunning.

The construction continued on the warm room throughout the weekend and right into the start of this week with great results.

The weather continues to hold and we're just a few days away from being sealed up.

Custom glass block window just for fun.

Monday night, after even more reading and I'm sure a few prayers from Jim, we finely got the polar alignment right, (goes to show even a blind squirrel finds a nut ever now and then). Thanks to Sam's work last week it took just a small wedge angle adjustment and with the proper set-up sequence it now works very well.

I also forgot that a few weeks ago Murmur Creek Observatory was added to the Amateur Astronomical Observatory site

This site was very helpful with our early research and is just fun to see all the different observatory builds, we thank them for adding us and if you get a chance have a look.

Great Weather and Progress

This might have been the nicest week of the summer,

60-70's temps and not a cloud in the sky, last year it had snowed by now.

The week started with running into Sam and Diane Monday morning at breakfast. As most of you already know, Sam is our project surveyor. I discussed with them that since our telescope was off it's Pier I would love to have his help to precisely a line our wedge and index the dome. They kindly set it up for Wednesday.

Turns out this would have been easier with the dome off the building but that's not happening so we got creative with the tripod setup to get the transit over rotating center of the wedge.

We spread out the tripod legs, drilled holes into the side walls, then spiked the tripod feet into the holes.

Then the shooting began, first shot to a control point then a total of 6 sun shots which involves a stopwatch and a short wave radio tuned to some international clock station.

Sam has all the latest computer gear to do sun shot calculations, here he is with his voice activated laptop (it must be, he talks to it constantly)

After the math was done he then had to spend time on a ladder shooting through the dome slot (and I don't think surveyors are big fans of ladder's but he did a great job!) I now have all the index marks I need and a perfectly set pier.

Another big thanks goes out to Sam and Diane for their support of this project and good luck to Diane who is running for a Cook County commissioner seat. All of us here at Murmur Creek Observatory give her our support and think she would do a great job.

The warm room construction continued all week,

it's been hard to keep true to the picture I have changed the roof line 3 times but I'm happy now.

Front view

Front side view

Back side view

So now I just hope the weather holds a few more days to get everything under cover. I'm also going to try to get the scope back up this coming week.

Starting the Seuss House

Hon was up all weekend and anxious to show off her carpentry skills so

we started with framing up the floor section, boxing in one side with 1/2 inch plywood, then applied a thick coat of paint before flipping them over on there 4X4 skids.

The two sections were joined together and the boxed in cavities filled with R-19 rated insulation then covered with 3/4 plywood flooring.

Then the framing began.

Our fist surprise is that 16 feet looks pretty tall,

but in thinking back to storage building construction I recall that one day it looks huge and the next day small and now that it's full of crap it looks tiny, so I think this warm room will also even out.

Besides her unbelievable carpentry skills, Pat has always been our landscaping expert. She brought up the first Seuss shrub that got planted Saturday and looks great.

Other then that I'll find someone next week to help reinstall the scope and work will continue on the warm room with should include no fewer then 6 trips to the lumber yard!

Frustration and Disappointment Dealing with Meade

Well we learned a lot about Meade this week.

On Monday, according to Meade, the scope had to be sent back to be repaired, on Tuesday they needed a serial number to look up the scope's history, Wednesday we heard nothing, Thursday we got the word to pull it down and box it up and Meade was setting up trucking and on Friday Meade now claims they had a meeting and the Scope is fine and will work as-is, so they are doing nothing.

Apparently this quality of craftsmanship is OK with Meade,

after all it's just a telescope we spent a lot of money on, then installed it in a expensive Observatory and added another $4000.00 dollars purchasing a camera and focuser, so how precise does the telescope have to be? It's not like they are building Swiss watches.

If I have my way, this will be the one and only Meade telescope Murmur Creek Observatory will ever mount on it's pier.

The only bright spot Thursday was this view out the dome.

Lester showed up early and we got to work. It took about an hour and we had it carefully lowered into the shipping box, not an easy job inside the dome,. After binding up the box I pulled the stair railing off along with one side wall to make a path out as wide as I could. Our plan was to load it in my truck and drive it into town on whatever day the trucking company is coming to pick it up.

With today's news I now have to unpack and reinstall the scope on the pier, but it's getting harder to find strong backs and weak minded helpers that still answer their phones.

I did get a start on the warm room in between rain showers, photos to come later this weekend, but I just had to bitch about Meade first.