defeated (Etobicoke)

Tonight was an astonishingly, mind-numbingly, frustrating evening.

We could not get MaxIm DL to work as required. We did connect to the main imaging camera. We did connect to the guiding camera. We did connect, after a time, to the focuser. We were able to see the imagery from the main camera. There was something on the guide camera. We did capture images every few seconds. We saw the results of focusing, manually, or remotely, with MaxIm (we did not use FocusMax). There was significant drift, during much of the evening, which meant every few minutes we'd have to find the object again. Lost an incredible amount of time with this. In the end we could not get the guiding to work.

The evening started strangely. Manuel changed the meal arrangements late in the game. I thought we were going to sit down together, with his nephew coming in from Montréal. When he called me a few minutes before our pre-arranged pick up time and asked, "Have you eaten?" I knew something was up. It was not entirely his fault. His nephew had said he'd arrive around dinner time. But when he did not show, the wheels kind of fell off the wagon for Manuel and I. Then Manuel told me he had already eaten. What the hell? I didn't understand why he didn't tell me all this. I could have made myself dinner and we could have met up later. I guess he felt bad and insisted on picking up something for me. Mamma Martino's was packed. And the line-up, on the brisk evening, was almost across the face of the building. It was a little uncomfortable wading through the crowd. And back at his home, I still felt a little uncomfortable, eating by myself. Alas, it gave us some time to chat and catch up.

Afterwards, we started the assembly.

I had really wanted to take a hands-off approach on this evening. I wanted him to do everything. I wanted to consult only. It was partly that I really wanted to see his steps through the telescope setup. See if he'd catch things like the mount latitude problem, for example. I did not want to do the collimation this time. I wanted him to get some experience in MaxIm. But he was distracted with various family matters. And all his neighbours driving or walking by. So I started doing stuff. To stay on the timeline. Keep us on track. And then when his nephew finally arrived with cube van, I felt pretty strange working on the telescope; I helped unload the truck.

The mounts and OTAs had been cooling in the garage. We set up just beyond his garage door. We couldn't set up further east in the lane for all the plowed snow. So, we set up shop in the middle of the lane. It wasn't long before the neighbours to the east returned home. Fortunately, they were able to squeak by.

During setup, I was able to verify and add lots of equipment details. Specs. Versions. Unfortunately Evernote in iOS clobbered my notes. Something about the formatting. Shredded it. I was not happy. But I made no attempt to clean it up on the stupid frickin' small screen and ridiculously annoying touch screen keyboard.

I helped with mount setup and initialisation. Pointed out the mount latitude was totally off: I found it set to about 25 degrees. I asked him why it was so slow. He did not answer in a way that made any sense. I wondered if he didn't know when he changed it. Maybe it was when the alignment peg was repaired. No matter. I started to change it. Asked him what his current latitude was. "45?" he responded, tentatively. Nope. I was a little disappointed he didn't know. Or have it handy.

Powered the mount and hand controller. I found the mount set to Toronto. I reminded him him to use his exact location and suggested that any precision would improve his imagery. I asked him for the current coordinates. He didn't know them. He said he did not have them in his Blackberry. Nor his laptop. Then he asked me how to get it. Oh boy. I told him I had the numbers. I asked he record them. I provided them in a couple of formats. "I don't want to have to do this again." Early, I had considered programming the "custom site" in the hand controller. But forgot in the kerfuffle.

Went about checking the Telrad alignment. He asked why I was doing that. He said it would not need adjustment. We had done it before. I found the remark strange. I said one should always check it. He repeated, "I adjusted it the last time." And I reiterated it could be off. So it was always worthwhile to check. He said, "But it doesn't need adjustment." An impasse. I stopped talking and fine-tuned the glowing circles.

We also had a weird argument about the telescope corrector cover. He had removed them during the day. I asked why. He said he heard the telescope cools faster. I wondered about that. I didn't recommend he do it any more. But, again, didn't want to get into a protracted discussion. I'd be concerned about the corrector getting dirty, scratched, collecting bugs, etc. But he seems more concerned with cooling. Certainly it takes a while with the big tube. Still, I think his priorities are askew. He also leaves the covers off the eyepieces, the cameras, magnifiers. And then gets upset when there's dust in the optical train.

During the star alignment, I wanted to add 3 or 4 calibration stars, for high accuracy. Manuel insisted it was not necessary. I suppose, for planetary, it is not critical. But I thought it would be a good exercise. He discouraged it. And later was not at all irked by the drifting. I also wanted to do the special polar align routine in the CGEM DX particularly because we had guessed on the pole star position. Again, he didn't want to do it. I dropped the matter.

After mounting the camera, we found a bright star high in the sky and focused on it. It was time, finally, to check the collimation of the 9¼" SCT. Except he wasn't ready. Ready in the sense that he didn't have the tools, the secondary cap removed, nor a step ladder. After he retrieved everything, Manuel handed me the screwdriver. Nope. I refused. "You're doing it this time." That made him nervous. "No. You gotta learn this." I made him go through all the steps. With the camera. And a star just past the meridian. The camera showed a pretty good diffraction pattern on both in and out focus. There was only a vary slight pinching. I had him make a 1/4 turn adjustment. We liked the result. Double-checked it. Done. I was pleased that he'd gone through the whole process.

Manuel announced that he wanted to get some shots of Jupiter. Huh? Now? We have a lot to do. I thought the priority was MaxIm. But he was desperate. Clearly he was blinded by it. It took about an hour or so to capture the frames he wanted. I basically sat around while he did all this. Getting cold. I put on more layers.

He recorded his initial images with the 2.5x Powermate. On examining the live view screen on the computer, he remarked the seeing was poor. It certainly wasn't great. Probably a combination of the skies and the heat pouring off the buildings. So then he put in the 3.0x Barlow. What the hell? I was shaking my head. Then he said he thought the view very soft. Well, yeah. If the seeing's bad, one should not increase power. But he seemed oblivious to the issues. Maybe I could have asked a question: hey, what about lowering the power?

During imaging, with the DFK camera, we thought the collimation off a little. There was still some slight pinching. He cursed. He was very upset. I tried to calm him. I said it was probably still really good. Tonight, the seeing would be the determining factor. He started to wonder if we should have left it alone. Or that I should have done it and not him. I reminded him again that it was partly an exercise.

There's something funny about Manuel with mechanical or logistical types of things. When he tried to hook up the parabolic dish heater, he started dragging power cords across the floor of the garage. Of course, the mount and the laptop in the driveway protested. He frowned and backed up and then tried again, moving further into the garage. He was struggling with how to keep the laptop connected. He just didn't know what to do. It was almost comedic. I gave him re-routing directions. We're just wired differently, I guess. No pun intended.

It was bloody cold. This was worsened with the slight breeze. I think I saw a temperature prediction of -5 or -10. It felt a lot colder. While Manuel was imaging, I sat in the garage. Tried to get out of the wind. I used all my hand warmers tonight. Started off the new USB one. First official use. It worked good for about an hour. I also the sodium ones. All three. Ida, thankfully, prepared coffee for us. That was much needed. Later, I started on some hard candy.

I found his time estimates very kooky. Manuel said, around 11:00 PM, "Oh, it will take us 40 or 45 minutes to get MaxIm figured out. An hour later, we had all the equipment connected and were just booting up MaxIm. At that point he looked at the clock and said, "OK, we'll have this all working in one hour." Uh huh. Gives new meaning to scope creep.

He rebalanced the 'scope after adding the focuser. Good, on one hand. I was pleased to see that he remembered to do it. But I pointed out when he released the clutches we lost the alignment. He didn't think it an issue. Pardon? I said that it would change everything. He finally acknowledged it was a problem when the go-to accuracy was off. Off enough that the target was not in the camera field. And chasing down the object was wasting valuable time. I couldn't stand it any longer: I redid the alignment. And begrudgingly used 1 calibration star.

I took the helm to try to get somewhere in the new software. I thought I'd play with the Windows 7 colour scheme to reduce the brightness. I used the High Contrast purple option. But then discovered a problem in MaxIm. The 3D graph for focusing is black. And it stays black, regardless of the Windows colour settings. With a black background we were screwed. I had to change to something different.

It was irritatingly awkward using the hand controller on that ludicrously short coiled cable. Celestron should have their heads examined. Nevertheless, Manuel still does not drive the mount from the computer. When he's got the computer control cable. And we know the NexRemote software works! I just don't get it. It meant more time lost for us. It was frustrating slewing. Had to go into contortions near the mount. Was afraid of bumping or knocking something, tugging a cord causing a disconnect.

The first attempts at focusing in MaxIm did not seem to work. We tried a bunch of things. Finally Manuel said, "Oh, the control box is not turned on." Yep. There ya go. Another 30 minutes wasted. We got the focusing working.

At one point, while Manuel was looking for another missing item, I looked at the the Pleiades naked eye. And for the first time, thought consciously about the brightness of the stars. If I remember correctly, the ones in the "handle" are brightest. [ed: This is correct. Atlas and Alcyone are mag 3.6 and 2.9 respectively. Electra at the bottom-right of the little little dipper is not far off at 3.7 but perhaps Atlas is enhanced by proximal Pleione.]

We moved onto the guiding procedures. And at this point, I started to struggle. It was probably a combination of the time, my general frustration, the temperature, so many unknown variables, the complexity of the software, the newness, my allergies, eyes watering, trying to read the manual by red flashlight. I thought I had done everything right. But the field in the main camera was clearly not staying put. It looked no better than before. Tried the process again. No joy. When something doesn't work I wanna fix it. Manuel practically had to tear me away. So frustrating. Unfinished business. I was sullen as we packed up. And couldn't seem to warm up.

I caught Manuel putting his OTAs on tables on the dovetail. I reprimanded him. Said "you're gonna bounce one again."

I was looking forward to warming up for a bit in the house but Manuel shuffled me off to the vehicle. We headed out. The temperature gauge read -8. I was quiet. A little spent, overwhelmed. Tired and frustrated. Kept reflecting on the challenges in the evening.

I wonder if he he has a hearing problem. I noticed it on another night. And tonight it seemed rather obvious. There were a few times where he couldn't hear me. I didn't think I was mumbling... I think he does not hear really well. Maybe all that loud rock and roll. If true, it's another issue in trying to communicate clearly.

I was continually frustrated that he truly did not have all the gear ready to go. He wasn't fully prepared. He had the telescopes and mount ready. But that was about it. I don't think he really considered the full scope of what we had to do. He couldn't find his little roll-up-wheeled extension cord thingie for some time. He didn't consider we'd run out of USB ports. He had to have Ida track down the USB hub. He did not have all the cables handy. He did not have the reticule eyepiece ready. And on and on. More time lost.

It was discouraging when my allergies flared up. I was sniffing and snorting through the later part of the evening. Eyes watering. Getting in my way.

Never getting a chance to talk about RASC resources was disappointing. I'd really like Manuel to consult them more. Like our web pages that describe where events are. And when they are. It will be best to broach this in person. I don't think I should badger him about this remotely.

A ray of light tonight though was seeing some success in my teaching moment. Quizzing him on the size of objects, seeing that he was a little uncomfortable, and finally admitting he didn't know. When I showed him the special chart I made, for him, with the chip sizes, beside astronomical objects, all to scale. I think it hit the mark. Showing the sizes of objects on my old Tirion charts (which really impressed him by the way), got through. I think I got through to him. I think I saw "realisation" on his face. Wow.

Still, at the end of this long night, I was very disheartened. I really started to wonder what I had got out of it. And I didn't like thinking that. Or other mutinous thoughts. Like missing the DDO members night, missing Nicole's talk on iTelescope. I think I ran out of friendly juice tonight.