Archive for September 2008

Just in case you were wondering…

Posted by on September 14th 2008 in New tricks for an old dog

Those crinkly rings in the previous post have quite a few uses:

  • Stick one around a water-bottle or similar when camping - it makes it easier to find in the night, no need to fumble about for the torch and ruin your night-vision;
  • Put two around your SLR/dSLR lens when taking night-shots (one on the zoom-ring, the other on the focus-ring). This way, I can adjust the zoom in the dark without moving the focus by accident;
  • They're useful for marking various bits of the telescope setup - the focuser, the auto-focus control box, the ends of the tripod legs etc..

They're currently on offer at Lakeland.

Crinkly rings

Posted by on September 13th 2008 in New tricks for an old dog

... can it be true? That I hold here, in my mortal hand, a nugget of purest Green?

Summer Hols – Part 7 – Esbjerg and the journey home

Posted by on September 12th 2008 in Great Escapes

Click on any of the pics to open up a bigger version in a lightbox thingy.

The next morning we packed away the gear for the last time, and prepped for the 40-mile drive across to Esbjerg to catch the ferry back to Harwich. We had plenty of time, so after finding the ferry terminal we drove northwards out of town to find a quiet spot for some lunch. We ended up sharing the beach with these characters:

 

 

 

 

We spent a few hours walking the strand-line, paddling and getting sand in our shoes:

 

 

 

 

Back at the car-park, Chris gave Anna her first driving-lesson. Luckily, I still had the keys in my pocket 🙂

 

While shopping for food, we found this place. Quite apt, I thought:

 

After boarding the ferry, it was time to go see the sights from the deck. There were seals on several of the sandbanks:

 

and we got a bit close to this Meccano monster:

 

There was to be a partial lunar eclipse visible on the port side that night, so I spent some time trying to get some pics of it, but it wasn't easy without the tripod. Here's a pic taken just after the eclipse started, there's a hint of penumbra at the lower-left:

 

The view from the starboard side featured gathering clouds against the fading light - a sure sign that we were England-bound:

 

And that was that. The next morning we docked at Harwich, got through Customs and made our way up to Norwich to visit some of Chris' (recently-extended) family for dinner and to catch up on the gossip.

Late in the evening, after the final car-journey of the holiday, we arrived home...

knackered.

Summer Hols – Part 6 – Legoland Billund

Posted by on September 10th 2008 in Great Escapes
Tags: ,

You'll be pleased to know that there'll be no blow-by-blow text account of our day out at Legoland Billund.

It's too much hassle to display all of the snaps in this one post, but if you click the following pic you can click through the lot using the "Shutter Reloaded" lightbox.

Scope focuser upgraded

Posted by on September 10th 2008 in Astrostuff, Shiny new kit

I'd been considering upgrading the scope's basic rack & pinion focuser for some time. After various bouts of tinkering, I'd managed to reduce the "Synta Slop" image-shift in the original focuser as far as I could without major surgery, and was fairly happy that it was the best that I was going to get, the other option being to shell out £100+ on an upgrade that I couldn't justify.

Then I chanced upon a bargain Crayford-style focuser at a keen price from Astronomica. After a few emails to check that the thing would fit with the minimum of hassle, I took the plunge and ordered one.

And guess what? It's a little gem. OK, it's unbranded, but I'm not one for paying for a label. Silky-smooth action with no discernible image-shift, plenty of travel, enough friction to lift the D50, and the Skywatcher Auto-Focuser fits it as well. The only tin-butchery required was the elongation of two of the mounting-holes in the scope OTA, but it was easy with the right kit.

 

 

I'll give it a thorough workout next time we get a clear night. Don't hold your breath, though - last night was the first (partially) clear one since we got back from Denmark, and the forecast says that it'll get worse before it gets better.

WTF?

Posted by on September 4th 2008 in A bit of a rant

I've been getting this warning screen when trying to access the blog. If it's annoying you too, please accept my apologies but understand that it's beyond my control, I've done nothing to provoke it.