getting ready

Rhonda and I arrived at the Carr Astronomical Observatory a little late. Two members were on site, just setting up. I apologised for being tardy. Immediately opened all the windows and fired up all the fans to cool things off. In short order, I opened the Geoff Brown Observatory.

Powered up gear. Triggered the red lights. Set up my ASUS Eee PC 1000 netbook with SkyTools 3 Professional. I brought a table top fan out from the house. Opened the roof.

9:59 PM. I settled in the Geoff Brown Observatory.

Switched the Warm Room chairs around. I wanted the one that rolled better.

Rhonda popped into the GBO. We talked about the quiet, hammocks, abundant fire flies, strong ciders, the improving skies, mozzie repellent, the warm air...

10:03. Checked my Evernote entry for the new computer details. Logged into the tower computer running Windows 10. Launched the Chrome browser. It landed at the RASC TC web site.

Spotted my Portable Document Format quick reference guides to Software Bisques TheSky X. Ha ha, my dark version, white on black. The PDF opened in Edge. Ugh. Oh well. It was working. Zoomed out a bit.

Launched TheSkyX. Connected, homed, the Paramount ME moved to its start position.

Wow. It looked like we would get clear skies. Opened lumpy, then the companion, my wx portal, then Blue Mountains.

It was hot. And humid. I checked the Bionaire unit above the counter: 63% relative humidity and 26 degrees Celsius. Toasty. The same air temperature as when Rhonda and I had been driving through Grey Bruce a couple of hours back.

Noted alerts all over the place in the Environment Canada tiles. Barrie, Midland, Collingwood, Orr Lake, etc. Violent thunderstorms? No. Ah, just heat advisories.

Checked the alcatel phone. Everything was super bright so I dimmed the Android screen. I was surprised to discovered Twilight. I thought I had deleted it. Yeh. Applied a strong red colour.

Examined the Clear Sky Chart predictions for the CAO: blue at 2100, 30% cloud at 9 o'clock, 10% cloud at 10 and 11 o'clock. The ECMWF said overcast. Transparency was poor. The seeing was good. Strange.

Pointed to Arcturus. Hit the slew button. I had previously programmed TSX to show the confirmation before moving. I acknowledged it and the mount took off. Headed to the eyepiece cabinet to load something into the big RC OTA. Grabbed something for wide field...

With my bug kit, rho returned. We found my 2 new bottles of DEET.

I headed to the telescope with oculars. Ready to show stuff in the sky...