Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes and Addendum

All righty then, the Lovely Druidess Rayetta is correct. Addressing simple tasks sequentially, while focused on each task, has a soothing effect and is entirely beneficial for those afflicted by nervous conditions or by the Demon Mammon.

Crumby, stop that.

Yepper, I'm just pulling all the gentlemen's middle legs about the Demon Mammon

Crumby, I'm warning you.

Er, that's right, a soothing effect, especially the nap. Praise the Goddess.

Anyway, taking a cue from Rayetta's list methodology I have made up a list for tonight's espyization of celestial bodies. The short version of the list, excluding the boring technical data, is Struve 3062, AR Cassiopeia, 78 Ursa Majoris, 37 Pegasi and 78 Pegasi. I shall espy these one at a time, and not worry about the next one until I'm all done with the current one.

These five celestial bodies have much in common. They are all binaries, they are all near fairly bright stars and therefore fairly easy to find, their respective twinks are narrowly separated and they are all colored pink in my personal copy of Pocket Sky Atlas.

Now I need to go collimate the Newt.
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Addendum

Boy howdy, it was hot out in the stygian darkness all the night until 3 AM. Further along than that I can not bear witness. But of the winged insects there were none. Truly also, the oppressive heat and lack of mercurial water has stifled the growing season. Naught but the irrigated and somewhat of the long rooted persist in their cycles.

It is well known that the Big Dipper, in common with some of the other celestial phenomena appears to rotate around the North Star. These days, that means the Big Dipper is not visible from the CB for the nonce, except for a short interval following Ogma's setting. Then, lo and behold, off the Big Dipper rotates behind the pecan orchard.

This for the nonce habit of the Big Dipper necessitated action from a man of action. The espyization location of the Newt is between two barns so that pollution may be less apparent. But this location is not good for espying the northern or western skies due to the visually intervening pecan orchard where no pecans will come to fruition again this turn of the wheel. But the Newt was already set up and collimated at its usual location. But Alioth and 78 Ursa majoris were already amid the pecan leaves from that perspective. What's a man of action to do?

Well, I was not going to move the collimated Newt cause when you move a Newt you are liable to bang the optical tube assembly against the Dobsonian mount and knock the collimation out of whack. So that was out. Then I remembered the bigger Lomo was handy. So I set up the bigger Lomo further off east in the east pasture where it could get purchase on 78 Ursa majoris. Alas, action does not always lead to much and I could not split 78 Ursa majoris into its component parts. But I almost did despite the great pollution. I bet I can, someday. I must stay the course, or alternatively, use the bigger aperture Newt on it.

After that it was Newt city, looking generally east, Pegasus the Flying Horse, and later, northeast, Queen Cassiopeia. It took me a great while to split 37 Pegasi. Almost as long as it took to make specimen skins out of some blind cave rats I collected in a coal mine back when I was an evil Christian. Ever try threading a needle in a coal mine with no light and only a canary for company? But split it I eventually did. Note: Hand guiding a 10" Newt employing a 3x barlow and a 4mm Ortho is not for the flat chested or the easily aggravated.

The sky was hazy with pollution, but I was not dismayed, only frazzled. Anon, 78 Pegasi lay naked and exposed to my gaze for a nanosecond and yet I was still merely frazzled. On to Struve 3062. Ha! Easy that one. 0.3 arcseconds is a lot. After that I was worn out with tight ones and enjoyed some easy ones for the balance of time, enveloped in the oppressive heat of the semi-stygian darkness. Aries has some nice ones. Oops, anon the Ample Bosoms beckoned.