didn't use THO in the end

6:51 PM. In the THO, I had the NexStar 11 up and running. I tried to do alignment but could not pick up satellite signal. I wasn't entirely surprised. I thought it likely due to the metal roof.

I prepared for a long weekend of observing... And drawing!

I wanted to do some sketching this time. Got my kit gear out. Opened it up on the little corner table. Good pencils from Sharmin. Nice sketch pad readied. Got the music stand out, assembled it.

Stumbled across the glow-in-the-dark shoelaces, from Charles. Put them in the rollie-pollie podium. Would try them out as it got darker.

Stole a little power bar from the GBO so to have multiple outlets at the table. Set up the netbook nearby. I plugged into the new networking hard line. I had not tried it. It worked!

Brought two chairs out from the house: one for me to sit at the corner table; one for the eyepieces case. Prepared the eyepiece case. Installed my Tele Vue SCT adapter and my Williams Optics mirror on the N11. This would be more convenient and better than using the dirty mirror.

All the while, I reviewed the N11 quick reference sheet I had written. Made some changes. A few things I had done wrong.

And watched over Kiron as he did a tire rotation, with my tools.

At one point, when I returned to the THO, I found the top roof flap closed. Weird. The wind must have flipped it shut. I reopened it.

6:58. I used the old Panasonic GPS to verify the coordinates. Specifically of the THO.

9:00. I let Sharmin use the N11 after a quick tutorial. Meanwhile, I headed to the GBO to build a new TPoint model. The bugs were bad.

Sharmin reported the NexStar was awkward to use. It often did not hit the target. And the manually slews did not work properly. Damn. Looks like it's not ready for prime time, yet.

Later, Millie and Sharmin reported a problem with the THO roof. The top flap was not closing. I inspected it: it looked like the latches and rings had been damaged by the wind. I did a quick repair to close it.