Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes - No, No, No

The prevailing cloudy conditions have proscribed my notes. I have, no notes, to spell up. So I'm going along to the laboratory to visit with my bosom companion, Ray. Here I am, arrived at that location. Quest cue say, Ray?

Bonjour Crumby.

Ray, we need to decide on a permanent location for the Galileo Gravitator, considering both its religious and scientific functions or capacities, whichever.

Put it over there on the lab bench next to the dissecting scope. That's my advice.

All righty then, Ray. We can bring in some extra chairs if we need to worship it. Right?

Correct Crumby.

Crumby rigs up a space for the Galileo Gravitator.

There now Galileo Gravitator. You're all settled. Let's plug you on in. There.

Ray! Which sphere would you prefer to be rigged up for the nonce?

Rig up the Moon, for the nonce, Crumby.

All righty then.

Crumby rigs up the moon and the twain bosom companions enjoy the levitated, rotated and lit up virtual moon for a spell.

Say Crumby, would you go to the trouble of voting for someone just because they like dogs?

Noper. The only dogs I will be voting for this time around will be yellow dogs, even though, as usual, it's a case of the lesser of two evils. However, one has to consider the relative size of the two evils and one of the twain evils is way too big for its britches.

Well, that answers my query, somewhat. Do you think the yellow dogs will adopt any Druid programs if they win?

No. The Druid programs are too radical. Can you imagine a civil service completely independent of politics, all of them working scientifically and efficiently to protect the human environment from the ruling class and the gluttonous Mammonites? That would be too much to ask of the yellow dogs.

Then why take the trouble to vote for yellow dogs, Crumby?

A vote for the yellow dogs, if it counts, may delay the arrival of the Wicker Man, Ray. That's why.

Later.

Hark! The skies have cleared, intermittently. Lyra is right overhead almost. Down and to the right is Draco's noggin. Remember all this Crumby, for future reference. But this night the double double was easy at 185x in the Lomo. The Ring Nebula was nice too. And Otto Struve what's its number, was nice. One of these night's it may stay clear long enough for me to get to espy all the ones I want to espy in Draco, again. I did have a look at Omicron, maybe. Nice! That brightest star in Draco's noggin sure is yellow or gold, whichever. Nice! But honestly, I sure wish I had my charts for these notes. The charts are out in the barn.

Lleu Llaw, fetch in the charts. They're out in the barn. Watch where you step!

Later, the next day.

Continuing to spell to myself a bit, out I went, into the crisp stygian darkness, all alone except for a good many dogs, some of them terrestial dogs, some of them celestial dogs. Why the heck is the little celestial dog named Procyon? Maybe for the same reason I have heard of dogs named Pig and Rooster. Pig and Rooster resemble their namesakes in certain aspects of behavior or appearance, maybe.

What I was about, was the attempted espyization of the companion stars of Sirius and Procyon. I wanted to see if I could detect them in the Lomo. The problem with the companions is that they are white dwarfs, tiny little things, mere celestial midgets, lilliputians of light, shadowing in the glare of their gigantic starry neighbors. The telescopery gear employed included the 7.3-22mm zoom, the 1.8x barlow, the 6mm UO ortho and a couple of different filters. I feel like I may have espied the Pup, which is the name of the White Dwarf orbiting Sirius. But I also, feel like, maybe I didn't. I don't feel like I espied Procyon's white dwarf, even close. Anon, I shall replicate this experiment employing alternative gear plus Lleu Llaw Guffes, Lion of the Steady Hand.

Dang! I nearly forgot something interesting. One of the reasons I got that zoom was because I felt like it might be a good ep for terrestrial views in the smaller Lomo and the C-90. And that "felt like" was a pretty good prognostication. Plus its dandy handy for the naked celestial. But once I discovered that none of my filters, or my focal reducer, would screw into the zoom, I was aggravated. That zoom is threaded, but so far as I know, nothing habitating on this plane actually fits those threads. So I sent a bunch of satirical e-mails referencing the situation to the zoom vendor. The vendor never e-mailed back and I have since learned that no response may be the usual methodology of that particular vendor. But, on the other hand, I discovered just this morning that I can set the filters inside the rubber cup on top of the zoom, and at that location, they filter pretty well and don't fall off, maybe.

Which has reminded of yet another vendor of telescopery gear. As I am aware, coma, is something of a problem my Newt causes me. A while back I thought about replacing the 4-vane spider with a 3-vane spider, but I haven't made any progress with that. I also thought about purchasing a coma corrector, but the cost cost seemed prohibitive to one of my semi-employed status. But now, the Baader Planetarium Company has this coma corrector designed for my Newt and manufactured by Celestron, Goddess Knows Where, that vends for under $150. However, that's still a lot of money. So I set about researchng the multi-purpose coma corrector (mpcc). Research eventually led to a US vendor who soon responded to my many questions regarding this product, the mpcc. However, the vendor had a question for me too. What are the focal plane of the eps you would be using with the mpcc? Uh, oh. Er.

Not wishing to be appear unnecessarily ignorant, I responded to the vendor that I would need to get back to him later on the focal planes of my eps after doing some research. So naturally I have been doing some research. But to find out anything of practical value I had to secure a guest membership in yet another astronomy club in addition to the two free ones I am already a member of. Then I had to rustle up an old microscope slide and some frosty backed scotch tape. Now, what I have to do is follow the methodology provided due to my guest member status and I shall soon learn the focal planes of my eps tonight, maybe. Tools needed besides the taped up microscope slide are metric ruler, flashlight, eidetic memory, or pencil and paper.

I have two pre-concerns. 1) Reckon should I measure from the top of focuser or from the top of 1.25" adapter for baseline? 2) Will I actually be able to focus a star image onto the microscope slide with frosty side toward the focuser? Er. Er.