coffee with Guy

Guy needed one of the RASC projectors; I wanted to borrow his collimation tools (again).

I was to work in the morning in Scarborough. Then, serendipitously, I'd have to drive westwards back home, along the 401, crossing Yonge St...

So, Guy and I hatched a plan for me to drop by his house, very near Yonge and The World's Busiest Highway, 'round noon.

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Guy had a fresh pot of java ready when I arrived. I could smell it as soon as I walked in. First things first. Guy showed me his video of the Arethusa occultation. He wasn't rubbing my nose in it; it revealed his satisfaction at his 11th successful hit. And I could tell he was disappointed for me. I could have captured some more data to help build up the profile.

I vented. I was frustrated with the situation. That I had "lost" my eyepiece dew heater some time back. And therefore was without a complete anti-dew solution. Not that I hadn't been thinking about it. But it was frustrating in retrospect, that I had not expediated my efforts to build my own. Heck, I still had not found a supplier of nichrome (or equivalent) wire in the GTA. Notwithstanding, I didn't think to put an eyepiece in my pocket as a back up. A simple thing! Guy mentioned using an eyeglasses cleaning cloth, one of those microfiber, proper, soft cloth things, keeping it in a pocket. I have a bunch of those! And I told Guy about my discovery of the 12 volt heating pad sheet things and that just a couple of weekends ago I realised they would come in very handy as a pad under my radio and recorder and that I had even bought a male CLA plug but, before leaving for Union, decided to not take it (and all my soldering gear) for lack of time or space or whatever but now, in hindsight, again I saw that it was flawed logic! ARRRRGH.

Sympathetic, Guy tried to assure me that these types of problems were common. That with the best of intentions, things can go wrong. Experienced observers forget things, skip something on their checklist, overlook something.

He was genuinely concerned that I was discouraged at this stage. That I was going to throw in the towel.

Funny, it hadn't crossed my mind...

But that remark made me realise that one could get discouraged in this particular branch of astronomy...

Anyway, it was good to chat about occultations, see what software he used (OccultWatcher) astromony in general, equipment, etc. As I am want to do, I "interviewed" Guy, to learn how and when he got started (mid-80s). Curiously, only a short time before I bought my 'scope.

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At one point, I remarked that Guy had a lot of portable battery power tanks! He explained what he needed them for and how one was destined for his cottage. For him, in particular, a video-recording occultationist, it made a lot of sense to have separate, indepedent power supplies for each piece of equipment: a battery for the telescope mount, a battery for the video camera, a battery for the TV monitor, and so on.

I hadn't thought about it before, but I should probably get another battery. Increasingly, I'm trying to operate a lot of gear. I'm on the verge of finishing my LED light box. It would be good to have it on an independent supply so to avoid the pulsing feedback interference that I see when on the same circuit as the Kendrick dew heater controller...