Telescope Tomfoolery Agin

Ha! Last night after Sedge Buster out I went to look at the stars. Now remember the sky out yonder in these parts is gray not black, like in that picture aways back and gets lighter as ye look north and darker as ye look south. But fer the nonce my interest lies north, despite all the pollution in that direction, so I looked at the Big Dpper fer awhile. But then Bran the Blessed that old talkin' head that some call Jupiter caught my eye and I says out loud to myself, Crumby, let's have a looksee off at that. So I lugged the telescope off to the east end of the pecan orchard to have a looksee at Bran. Then naturally, due to my monkey ancestry, I commenced monkeyin' with this and monkeyin' with that. Then by accident, fer its dark ye see and the monkeyin' I'm doin' is hindered or accentuated,perspectives considered, by not bein' able to read the tiny print on the eyepiece boxes. So my monkeyin' leads on to a desire for higher and yet higher and yet higher magnifications on Bran. So I fumble around and get ou the a 2x barlow which I am very happy with and and what I believe is a 9mm ortho goes in the barlow and the twain of em, that is the barlow and the ortho go in the telescope. Whoa! Bran's big and I can still see bands good. But then I turned a light on and discovered the 9mm ortho was still in its box and I had put in the 7mm instead due to fumblin' in the dark. Whoa! That's 342x. That telescope deserves some dark skies.

After that I wheeled about sluggishly due to the vast heaviness of the German eqatorial mount (GEM) and the nessity of relocatin' to a new vantage point to espy Vega in the constellation Lyra agin, which is very tough cause of the very, very bad pollution in that direction. But that's whut I did anyway cause I am round chested and a man of action to boot. But just about then, as usual and right on schedule, bein' about 3:00 in the mornin, the clouds rolled in, and that was that.

So then there was nothin' left to do but gather up all the paraphanalia and head back towards my quarters in the CB human and proto human housin' area. So I'm luggin' along in the semi-dark and I hear this little ping noise as I'm navigatin the steps to get back in, but I caint do nothin' about the ping right then, though it concerns me fer I am mortally afeared of wing nut pings and I was afeared a wingnut made that very ping noise I had just heard.

Sure enough, pings are bad prognostications, fer when I gained the advantage of inside light and sat the telescsopery down, two of its legs went northwest and one of its legs went southeast and if is fortunate fer me, and it, that I retained the upper parts of all that paraphanalia in a bear like grasp, fer otherwise it would have been done for, and I would have subsequently hurt myself bad during the ensuing temper tantrum, maybe. But that bear like grasp I had on it saved the night and certain disaster was narrowly averted fer I was able to gently lie it prone and disconnect the telescope from the rest of the parts that ye now see here somewhere, maybe.

See that tiny screw and wingnut sittin' in that triangle thingy? I retrieved that stray wing nut just a while ago, fer no stray wingnut can evade my trusty magnet on a stick. Anyway, that's the very one that pinged. That un, and two other uns just like it are all that keeps the tripod from doin' the splits and if one of em comes loose, beware. For that triangle thingy is a-fixed within the tripod legs, under conditions of normal usage, and keeps the tripod from doin' the splits. I got to work on this and come up with some other arrangement. Too dang dangerous!