now lumpy

The new address for my astronomy blog is up and running. You may use http://blog.lumpydarkness.com/ now.

I subsequently retitled the pages from "dark skies" to the new name. And made all the corresponding changes to the "companion" pages. The address of that external site remains unchanged...

a rose is a rose is a rose

With Network Solutions, I registered a domain name this evening: lumpydarkness.com.

tight doubles split (Toronto)

I was outside a little before 9:00 PM Saturday evening in hopes of spotting Saturn earlier than I had in the previous evening. I scanned and scanned. OK, I cheated: I used my binoculars to try to find it. No luck. Where's a Sky Scout when you need one?!

Ah ha! Found it. Naked eye. Yes! I quickly checked the time. And started laughing. It was 9:04 PM. That was one whole minute sooner than last night. Oh well.

In the excitement of recording my accomplishment in my notebook, I lost sight of the ringed planet. It took me 5 minutes to find it again and ultimately bull's eye it in the finder scope.

9:10 PM, 40% humidity, 16°C. Titan was to the right, about 4 ring-widths away (mirror-reversed). I could see another moon, on the left, about 1 rw away (Rhea). And "down" a bit. That must mean it was behind Saturn...

Just a minute. Just a minute. Is that another moon I see? Is there another one on the left? I couldn't tell for certain. Eyes or brain playing tricks on me. Air wavering.

9:21. Confirmed! There are 2! The second one is about a ½ rw away (Tethys).

[Other people reported seeing "three in a row like Jupiter's moons." From Saturn outward: Tethys, Dione, and Rhea. I should have kept looking!]

9:35. Turned to Mars to find it had escaped from the bees! It was well clear, at least of the very bright stars in M44.

OK. What's "falling" away? I decided, while reviewing The Evening Sky Map, and scanning the Pocket Sky Atlas, to tackle objects in constellations descending into the western trees. Part of Hydra was still visible. A constellation I've never viewed before.

I tried to τ1 (tau 1) Hydrae. A pleasing double star with a warm yellow main and a pale orange companion. They were widely separated. Perhaps 1/15 of the field at 110x power. That would be 86". Haas reports 66".

This eyepiece, the Meade 18mm OR, washed out some of their colour. At 56x, through the baader planetarium 36mm Hyperion aspherical, they were wonderful, rich, particularly mixed in with the gaggle of nearby white stars.

I shifted to τ2 (tau 2) Hydrae. Didn't see any companions. Rechecked PSA: oops, not a double.

Off to γ (gamma) Sextantis. Another "new" constellation for me. Tried to split it. Could not see a companion. Checked double stars for small telescopes. Haas intimated it would be difficult, listed a separation of 0.6". I've never seen any stars that tight! I raised the power to 220x with the 18mm and the Celestron Ultima 2x Barlow. No go.

10:36, 45%, 14.6°. I wanted to try for doubles in the head of Hydra. While I could spot this asterism from my vantage close to the house, the view was blocked for the telescope. Alas, too late.

Zipped over to ι (iota) Cancri. But on viewing it, I felt it looked familiar. I don't mean, that it looked like Albireo. I had a hunch I had seen it before. Sure enough: it was already checked in Haas's book. Still, the yellow-blue combo is impressive.

10:51, 46%, 14.4°. I just split Σ1291 or 57 Cancri. They are crazy close! I needed 220x to do it. They are identically pale orange stars, identically intense. Checked Haas's book: 1.5" separation. Woo hoo! A new record for me (beating the pairs in Lyra's Double-Double)!

I moved over to Leo. I found ι (iota) to be a very tight pair. The main is white-yellow; the companion is dim blue. Haas says they're 1.7" apart. Eyes are good tonight!

11:28. Huh. Lots of new constellations this evening... I just learned my way around Virgo and Corvus. Virgo was higher than I expected it to be. I was surprised to see Corvus from the back yard! I could just see δ (delta) and γ (gamma) over the trees, trellis, and roofs.

Actually, I stumbled across δ (delta) Corvi (aka Algorab), a wide double, pretty at low power. The main star I felt strongly was a white or pale yellow colour. The companion? Didn't seem to have any colour. Just paler. Grey? Seems a strange moniker for a star colour...

11:41, 50%, 13.5°. I just split γ (gamma) Virginis (Porrima)! Holy cow. I didn't expect to do that! Identical bright white stars, extremely close. When the air was steady, it was definitely 2 points, with a black gap between them. Haas says 0.4". I'm smashing the records tonight!

12:16 AM, 52%, 13.1°. Completed my second star hop to globular cluster M3. Even though I had a sneaking suspicion I had already viewed it. Oh well. Good practice. Still, it was a worthy pursuit. I enjoyed how it sat in the middle of a right-angle triangle of stars.

It occurred to me during double star and Messier hunting that I need with me, in the field, some sort of check list. I.e. a check list of what I've already seen. Actually, with the Haas book nearby (and presumably updated), I'll have a listing of double stars viewed. But I need a quick reference list for my deep sky objects. Not that I don't mind seeing them again...

12:44, 52%, 12.8°. I tried for M51, the Whirlpool. I thought, being almost straight up, it would be easy to peg. I dunno, man...

1:23, 56%, 12.0°. Done.

§

I may have mentioned this before. But do you know what would be incredibly handy near the telescope, for my star charts? A podium. OK. Maybe not a big heavy wood podium. Perhaps I'm thinking of a music sheet stand. Adjustable height. Something to hold my star charts near the 'scope so I can view without craning over.

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Funny. No raccoons Friday night. Tonight, on the other claw, lots. I heard them chattering and fighting with each other around the 'hood. At 921, a fat one ventured into the back yard with me. I chased him away. Later I heard the neighbours to the east attempting to deal with them.

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I forgot to note that last night, for the first time really, I did a lot of viewing (through the eyepiece) without my eyeglasses on. And I enjoyed it. I seemed to be flipping them on and off less. When I wanted to view constellations, sure, I'd need them. I found I needed them for star hopping through the finder scope. Hmm. If I refocus the finder scope to my vision without eyeglasses, then it should mean even less flipping...

old invoice

Stumbled across the old invoice for my telescope.



A little bit of history now verified...

§

This also illustrates how memory is "optimistic." Lately, when people have been asking me how much the telescope cost, I have said $1000... Oops.

Saturn, Mars, the Beehive, and clouds (Toronto)

All day I was thinking about observing! My computer classroom had large windows showing the north-west horizon. From the eighth floor, green vistas rolled into the distant escarpment. I watched clouds bumble across the deep blue sky through the day.

When I got home, I immediately began to set up (forgetting to eat dinner). I set the telescope up on the spot, the place where I had shot my recent omnirama from.

Intrument: Celestron 8-inch SCT
Mount: Vixen Super Polaris
Method: star hopping

Evan came outside to play. The inquisitive 4 year old had many questions for me. I was ready to go at 8:00 PM.

Tonight, I had decided: no plan! Using Stellarium—with the new accurate landscape—I would just see what I could see. Whatever was clearly visible and rising, that's where I would aim. I would only go for objects in visible constellations.

Without aids, I tried to spot Mercury around 8:45 PM. No luck. Probably too low now.

I eyeballed Saturn at 9:05 PM and quickly swung the 'scope to it. The view was beautiful in the 36mm. Immediately, in the low contrast, I could see 3 moons! There was one on the left side (mirror reverse orientation) about 1 ring-width away (Rhea). On the right, a ½ rw away was a fainter moon (Tethys). And Titan was clearly visible to the right about 4 or 5 rw away.

9:25 PM, 47% humidity, 14.7°C. The seeing was really good at times. At 110x I could clearly see the shadow of the planet on the rings, the North Equatorial Belt, and even the Cassini division. What an amazing planet.

I found I was sliding down in the seat of the Big DOC observing chair. With the multi-coat finishing, it is very slippery. Also, the seat has flexed a little, tilting down. I'm going to have to figure out a solution. Maybe a shim to angle the seat up? Or a cushion or pad on the seat?

Clouds from the north were threatening. I saw them early when trying to spot Mercury. In fact, even at that point, they may have blocked it. Regardless, they are moving south. I knew they might kibosh the whole evening...

9:42, 48%, 14.5°. Is Mars leaving the Beehive? I wondered. I sketched the view presented by the 36mm 72° eyepiece. Mars is the large point at the top. There was a little pale star very nearby. Stellarium says it was very near HP 42673. Cartes du Ciel says it's HD 73974 SAO 80361 BD+20 2185.



Very picturesque, the orange planet amidst blue stars.

"Hey! Why's everything getting dim?! Oh, oh, the clouds have arrived..."

§

When I returned outside around 10:05 PM, I was joined by a house mate and his girlfriend. As they fired up their BBQ, I showed them Saturn. They were very impressed. But then, Saturn is such low hanging fruit! I cranked up the power and pointed out details. They had lots of questions for me. Genuine interest in the stuff. He's a photographer. Still does some film; has a Canon 20D! They have a good sense of scale, our place in the Universe. They recommended the film Baraka; I recommended Koyaanisqatsi (which they had never heard of).

I showed them Mars in the Beehive before the clouds returned. The whole sky was covered at 10:34 PM.

I almost quit. But I ventured back outside after midnight and the clouds were almost gone...

12:20 AM, 54%, 12.9°. Decided to try for some double stars in Boötes.

I noticed, according to the Pocket Sky Atlas, ζ (zeta) was a double. I put the wide field eyepiece on it. There are a lot of little stars here, around 10 to 12 magnitude... I zoomed into the centre bright star. Looked like a single to me. Checked double stars for small telescopes and it made it sound like it is a very challenging target, at 0.7" separation. [ed: The closest pair I had seen was the Lyra Double-Double pairs, each around 2.1".] Haas said one needed 500x to split it! I couldn't recall where I put the 4mm so I could only get 220x... I resigned to count it as a miss. Next?!

ξ (xi) was very interesting. The main star is yellow and the companion is a dark orange (this agreed with Hartung's description is Haas's book). A nice colour contrast. It was a little hard to find with the SCT at zenith. Not a lot of bright stars nearby. But the star hop was worth it. Very pleasing separation at 110x.

12:44 AM. I tried Σ1687 (found in the PSA). This was not documented in the Haas book. Did I see a quad group?! Maybe my eyes were getting tired. Certainly the main star was yellow. Below was a dark blue star. But left and right, I kept thinking I was seeing very faint stars!

[ed: Possibly I was looking at 35 Com... It is described as a "good triple." Close orange-yellow stars and a distance "cobalt" blue companion.]

[ed: I should go for some triple and quad multiple stars. That would be cool.]

Around 1:00, I tried for the Black Eye Galaxy (M64) in Coma Berenices. I think I found it, a smudge, a low power. But at higher powers I could not make out any detail. Drag.

1:09. I found M53, the globular cluster. Once or twice the seeing went razor sharp and I could see individual stars. Otherwise it was a faint blob, smudged. Near 2 stars, around magnitude 9.

1:14, 59%, 11.9°. I decided I was done, despite a pleasant temperature. The sky seemed washed out. It must have been the rising gibbous moon...

phoned neighbour

I phoned my neighbour to the east. Asked if they would turn off their back yard lights for me this evening. They protested mildly saying they left them on so to keep the raccoons from tearing up their new lawn sod. And how's that workin' for ya?!

§

They honoured my request!

added more stars

This time to Stellarium...

They say that the default catalog(s) show(s) 600 000 stars.

I downloaded and installed catalog 4. It contains 1 725 497 stars up to magnitude 10.5.

Then I added catalog 5. It contains 7 669 011 stars down to magnitude 12.

received SkyNews, finally

My copy of the May/June issue of SkyNews arrived today.

It's a little late for the early May stuff...

Oh well.

Shouldn't complain. It is a gift, really.

a pretty good landscape

There. Much better.

I realised that my original photos included information slightly below the horizon, below 0°. Whatever the camera's field of view is.

When I stitched those images, there was some data "lower" in the photos. But early in my decision making I had cropped out this data.

With a 2048 x 2048 aspect ratio, I realised I could re-incorporate this data into the photos. It would allow the vertical angular ratio feature in Stellarium to work better. And it would allow me to "push" the ground image lower. Also, if I moved the visual data up to the top of the frame, that would increase the height of all the buildings and trees.



The final result now, without having to re-shoot the photos, is quite good. I have now made this custom 4 panel panorama my default landscape at the start-up of Stellarium 0.9.1.

I'm very happy about this!

Hey, look! You can see Evan's little red wagon.

4 panels

Just rejigged the panorama and sliced it into 4 panels each 2048 x 2048 pixels. It works! This is the way to go...

backyard panorama

I created a custom panorama (or should I say omnirama?) landscape, using the multi-image method, for Stellarium for my postage stamp-sized backyard! It is very cool. It will help me better predict what I can see when I decide to try observing from the driveway.

It took a while to build it though...

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I shot a set of hand-held digital photos from a pivotal point in the driveway—the seam intersection of the concrete slabs, near the drain grate—with my little Samsung 800K. Each image was 1024 x 768 pixels.

I needed to "stitch" these together so to form a continuous tube or ring panorama. I tried the recommended Panorama Factory application which, in general, was easy to use. It was described as free; ah, no—it's shareware! The downloaded version 4.1 appeared fully-functional but put a watermark in the middle of the image. OK in a huge panorama but very distracting when I tried 2x1 stitches. And I had begun these efforts in an attempt to stitch image files vertically.

I tried Pixtra OmniStitcher in hopes of vertically and horizontally stitching but found it incredible frustrating. Maddening. I investigated a number of other titles but found many crippled.

Finally, I tried HugIn 0.7 beta. Did the job. Fairly straight-forward. And free. It built a very large JPEG image file, 9020 x 3307 pixels!

Then next stage was to "blank out" the sky above the houses and trees. I tried to do this in the GIMP 2.2. I considered using a mask of some kind but I couldn't figure that out. So I ended up using the lasso button (Select hand-drawn regions) to manual select areas close to the sky. I filled these regions with a foreground colour (via the Edit menu), i.e. black. At some point I had added an alpha layer for transparency. I can't remember exactly how I did though. I'll have to review that critical step... The "magic wand" tool for Select Contiguous Regions was handy for little spots within trees! Finally, I saved the file in native GIMP format (XCF) to preserve the alpha transparency and layer information.



Warning: Thumbnail linked to super-wide panorama image!

Now this is where I got into trouble!

After cropping and rescaling, I started to work from a panorama that was 9024 x 1992. I divided this horizontally into 8 images, each panel ended up 1128 x 1992 (I know, I know, not square). Saved each panel as a PNG file.

Loaded into a new folder. Stole a "floor" from another landscape. Re-purposed a landscape.ini file for my image files and location. And then spent some time tweaking the ini file to get a good look. Not bad for my first attempt. but the main problem was that some form of stretching or replication was happening between the panels. I assumed it was because of the aspect ratios on my files.

When I read on the Stellarium forums landscape page their "warning" that if you want to publish a custom landscape you have to use power multiples (e.g. 512, 1024, 2048...), I realised I needed to rework my images.

So, back to the (electronic) drawing board. After some aggressive cropping, I had a panorama 8192 x 1024. The problem with this size was that I cut off essentially everything at the 1 metre level and down. This also cut the very top edge of my house roof-line. Everything works, from the tree lines and up; but the ground looks very strange. Or that the back yard is filled with quicksand.



Second attempt: overall, impressive!

I don't know if in the end there is anything I can do about this... My situation is unusual verses the other Stellarium landscapes. They show wide open vistas. Something all astronomers want, obviously. But I'm a metre or two from a two-storey house which effectively blocks out 80° of the sky.

I fell asleep wondering if I could go to a 16384 x 2048 panorama. This might capture the peak of the house and a bit more of the ground... But it may require I start from scratch, shooting a new series of photos... Maybe I should use a different camera with a focal length shorter than 47mm.

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Appendix: Discoveries on Editing a Stellarium landscape.ini File.

As the parameters for multi-image handling within the landscape.ini file are not thoroughly documented in the Stellarium user guide, I thought I'd make some additional notes.

• The description parameter must be entered as one line. Do not insert hard line breaks during data entry; soft breaks with word-wrapping OK.
• Do not allow more than approx. 40 characters per line in the description. Use the \n switch (that's, backslash N, in lower-case) to form a line-feed within the landscape dialog box.
• The side0 (i.e. side zero) panel starts at the east cardinal direction. I.e. the left edge of the panel is aligned due east. Panels continue clock-wise. In an 8 panel multi-image display, side6 will correspond to north.
• The decor_alt_angle parameter affects the vertical angular size of the panels, i.e. shortens or elongates them. Acceptable value ranges from 1 to 90 degrees.
• The ground_angle_shift parameter affects where the "floor" image is placed in relation to the "camera," i.e. in elevation. If you use a positive value, your perspective will be from below the floor image.
• Minor changes to the landscape.ini file may be tested rapidly, after saving, as Stellarium runs, by switching "away" from the custom landscape and then immediately switching back to it.

End notes.

needed to see Mercury (Toronto)

Set an alarm in my palmtop to remember to look for Mercury around sunset.

I took my little astrolabe outside to get the elevation. Later I took out my compass to get the azimuth. I kept scanning with my binoculars but couldn't find anything. Popped inside to grab a sweater and I double-checked Stellarium. Oops! I was reading the Declination number of 25°. Crikey, the altitude was now 14°. Fortunately, still above the trees. I found it in short order.

I waited until I could easily see it naked eye. Then I took in Saturn, close to Regulus. Found Mars, departing Gemini, but still relatively close to Pollux and Castor.

As I packed up, I felt tempted to set up the telescope. Alas the fat Moon would spoil any attempts at DSOs...

loaner PST

Eric loaned me his Coronado Personal Solar Telescope (PST) with 12.5mm eyepiece. I look forward to viewing the Sun in Hydrogen-Alpha!

IAD star party (Don Mills)

Today was International Astronomy Day! Woo hoo! I helped—with another 20 or so RASCals—at the evening star party held at the Ontario Science Centre. The skies were not great but we got fair views of the waxing crescent Moon as well as Saturn and Titan. I'm pretty sure I say Dione; Tom thinks I was seeing the brighter Rhea. I turned to Algieba (γ or gamma Leo) for a time.

Late in the evening, I decided to try the double star Izar (ε or epsilon) in Boötes. Not an easy star-hop through the murk. And there are not a lot of bright stars around Arcturus. But I persevered, checked my charts, corrected my orientation, and I found it! Wow. A worthy target.

When I checked Haas's book, I noticed there was no check-mark beside it. What?! Is this the first time I've seen this star?! I thought for sure I had viewed it before.

(On checking my blog, I found it documented. It's just that I forgot to tick the row in the book...)

John B took a look through my eyepiece. He described the faint secondary as deep blue. Wow. I do not see that colour...

forgot about the tent sales!

Damn! At about 4:30, I suddenly remembered that there were tent sales in Telescope Alley (Dufferin St just south of Hwy 401)! Both efstonscience and KhanScope were having outdoor tent sales today, on International Astronomy Day.

I was focused on my astronomy planning during the afternoon. Will dropped by to pick up some car parts. I was enjoying the fresh air and sunshine in the backyard. And my palmtop screen was acting up so I was not using it very much. All these things combined and I simply forgot about the potential savings.

When I considered the time, I immediately resigned myself that it was too late to try...

Who knows if I missed some great deals.

first light from Sol

Tried out the new full aperture solar filter this morning. Everything worked OK but the Sun is somewhat boring right now. Quiet sun. While SOHO showed one sunspot, it was very small. I could not see it in white light...

I remembered to cover the objective lens of my finder scope so to not burn it up!

bring on the sun!

Even though there's a big "For Lease" sign in the front window, I walked into Kendrick today. Jim popped his head up from the back. I told him that, as per his suggestion by email yesterday, I had accurately measured the outer diameter of the SP-C8 tube (232 mm) and he quickly retrieved an appropriately-sized baader visual solar filter.

I test-fit it an hour later. Perfect!

the future 40 years ago

Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick released a view of the future 40 years ago today...

You might want to read the intriguing article at the NASA web site.

While we do not have a spinning space station with artificial gravity, we have a complex station in orbit, under construction but operating 24/7 with international partners.

We're heading back to the Moon... We'll not likely find a monolithic beacon. But we're preparing for living on a body other than Earth. We continue to search for life in the solar system.

Our computers today do not exhibit intelligence. But they sure seem crazy some times!

asked to deliver talk

Tony asked if I would deliver an astronomy presentation and coordinate a star party for The Farmer's Pantry orchard in July! Wow.

I called Mary-Lynn and set it up. Saturday 12 July is the target.

new solar lights installed

Just before leaving the CAO, I installed 4 new solar lights (retrofitted with super-bright red LEDs). These 4 replace the other 2 destroyed by Denis Grey, Toronto Centre president, and the 1 run over by Trevor.



Hopefully these new ones will last a full season! Sheesh...

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Photo of lights a'chargin' by Charles D. Shot with a Sony DSC-V3, 13.9mm focal length, 0.003s (1/320) exposure time, f/8.0, ISO 100.

fixed the loaner 'scope mount

As John tried to set up the small refractor telescope to catch Mercury, he struggled a bit. Partly because he is used to Dobsonians—they are so easy to operate. This equatorial mount was different for him, it seemed. Once we got him pointing it north, we found that the Declination axis control was not working. It seemed like something was jammed. Had the worm gear had jumped a thread? I offered to fix it.

It turned out that the upper and lower nuts and attachments on the declination shaft had been made far too tight! I disassembled and rebuilt the mount. It works as it should now.

I debriefed John on my discoveries and cautions. In particular, when attaching the counter-weight shaft, excessive torque should be avoided.

We also found the metal pointer for the declination scale is missing a tiny (metric) screw... That should be replaced.

§

Should I examine all the Toronto Centre loaner telescopes to see if they are working correctly or are in need of repair?

tried for Mercury (Blue Mountain)

Someone reminded us that Mercury was at great elongation around now. That's right!

The sudden clear skies sent a few people scurrying outside to set up their gear. John had the Toronto Centre's refractor; Tom had his binoculars on a tripod. I checked The Sky on the main computer: the inner planet was at azimuth 288° and 15° up!

It was a pretty sunset...

But it was not to be. Clouds were quickly moving in from the south-west.

§

For a moment there I was thinking I had blown it, not bringing up my astronomy gear and telescope...

§

I learned in this exercise from Tony that the rails of the GBO point north.

rainy day at CAO

We did a bit of work outdoors at the CAO between downpours. Yep, it was that time again: another work party for the Toronto Centre of the RASC. The usual suspects were there plus a couple of new faces. We got lots done today. I set up the "new" BBQ, removed a bunch of the storm windows, and worked on the deck. There's more to do tomorrow...

I played driver, with a Ford van from Tony's work, for much of the day. I had offered to pick up Denis from Thornbury around 11:00 AM. We also needed supplies from the Home Hardware Building Centre. Plus some of the guys needed fuel from the LCBO. Later in the afternoon, they sent me back to Home Hardware for some pressure-treated 2x4s.

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Note: I created this entry using an XO OLPC laptop computer (http://laptop.org/). Charles brought up his little green and white portable computer with built-in handle. He had troubles connecting it to the CAO wireless network. I sorted that out for him. Tiny keyboard. Hard to touch-type. But it's running Linux. It renders web pages remarkably well. Very cool.

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Photo by Ian D. He set up a flickr page for the spring 2008 work party.

scouted the town

I have wanted to know for some time what services and shops were available in Thornbury. So I left Toronto early, drove past the observatory, and continued into the small town. Got the lay of the land. I did up a little map. I'll add this as an addendum to the CAO manual.

For your info:

• Tim Horton's, 48 Arthur St W (across the street from Mac's)
  
• Mac's variety, 59 Arthur St W (aka Hwy 26)
• LCBO, 43 Arthur St W (even though it is between Mac's and the pharmacy)
• PharmaSave, 45 Arthur St W
• Earl's Car Care, 58 Arthur St W
• Thornbury Car Wash, 56 Arthur St W
  
• medical centre, 21 Arthur St W (to be confirmed)
  
• Canada Post, 4 Arthur St W
• New Orleans Pizza, 4 Arthur St W, 519 599-1114
• Wong's Restaurant, 3 Arthur St W
  
  
• laundromat, 6 Bruce St N
  
• bank, TD Canada Trust, 4 Bruce St S
• Whole Grain natural & organic foods, 31 Bruce St S
  
• Ashanti coffee shop and roastery, 39 Bruce St S
• Mountain View Eye Car, Bruce St S at Louisa
  
• candy & chocolate store, 49 Bruce St S
• The Dam Pub, 53 Bruce St S
• Long's auto repair, 102 Bruce St S
• Leonard E Shore public library, 183 Bruce St S
  
  
• Mill restaurant, 12 Bridge St E, 519 599-7866, reservations recommended
  
• Thornbury Manor & The Back Door Pub, 27 Bridge St E
• municipal offices, 26 Bridge St E
  
  
• UPI gas (including Ultra 94 and ethanol), 63 King St E (hmm, pumps are on the north side of the road)
  
• Carquest auto parts, 55 King St E (aka Hwy 26)
• Sterio's Steaks and Seafood, 81 King St E, 519 599-5319, reservations recommended
• Penny's A Motel, 141 King St E
  
• Beaver Motel, 161 King St E
• Foodland (formerly IGA) grocery, 208300 King St E (between Grey and Elgin)
  
• Home Hardware Building Centre, 208339 King St E (between Hwy 2 and Grey)
  
  
• OK Tire Service, Hwy 2 at Hwy 26
• fire hall, Hwy 2 at Hwy 26
  
• Blue Mountain Veterinary Services, 728380 21st Side Road, 519 599-7777
• fresh baking, post office, Ravenna General Store
• beer stores, bottle return, Meaford or Collingwood
• Canadian Tire, Collingwood
  

For more info, other shops, B&Bs, see the Blue Mountain regional web site.

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I'll do a similar table and map for Collingwood, with emphasis on shops and services not in Thornbury.