Mercury will begin a morning apparition this week. The planet is currently about 10° above the rising Sun, climbing higher each morning. Look for a 3rd magnitude star-like object just above the glow of dawn. Mercury will reach a maximum elongation of 19° on July 29th.
Mars and Jupiter
Over the next few mornings Mars and Jupiter will rendezvous in the dawn sky. This morning sees the two a little over 2° apart. Over the next few days that will narrow quickly with close approach occurring on the mornings of July 21st and 22nd with about 50′ of separation between the two planets. By the 26th the distance between the pair will again have grown to over 2°.
Throughout the encounter the two planets will precede the Sun by about 25°, rising about 04:00HST, well placed for observation.
Keep an eye out for Mercury below the pairing, a 2nd magnitude object about halfway between the conjunction and the rising Sun. The innermost planet will reach maximum elongation on July 29th.
The mornings of August 3rd and 4th will see a thin crescent Moon slide along the line of three planets in the dawn.
Shark!
The Coathanger Cr399 and NGC6802
The bright stars of Collinder 399 form the Coathanger asterism. Also visible is the open cluster NGC6802 at the left of center. North is up in this view.
Raspberry Pi, Python and SPI
It has only taken me much of the day to get it working. Hours spent reading documentation, searching for postings on the same issue, ripping up the code and trying completely different approaches. Hours of frustration mixed with some solid learning.
Victory was seen in three bytes.
Three bytes shown on the logic analyzer display and in the Python console window. The same three bytes… The hardware and software agreed. The serial timing also looked great, chip select going low when it was supposed to, a 500kHz clock, all of the edges just as the data sheet specified.
Victory is connecting an eight channel A/D converter IC to a Raspberry Pi computer with the hardware SPI module. Four channels for voltages, four channels for temperatures. The project is coming along nicely. Will talk about what in a later posting. Meantime my thanks to Connor Wolf, Louis Thiery, and Brian Hensley. It was their method and SPI code that worked!
A small victory, another step forward, this is what hackers and makers do…
Postcard from the Reef – Brown Slipper
Postcard from Hawaiʻi – Cats at the Door
A Construction Cam for TMT
Not a hard job, but someone has to do it… Hanging off the weather tower again. This time all I am doing is taking pictures!
Paul and Fred from the the TMT telescope are walking the perimeter of the TMT site with a large white pole. At a few preset points they call me on the radio and I snap a couple photos. I spend the few minutes between each location just enjoying the view, or adjusting the climbing harness to find a less uncomfortable pose. At least the weather is quite nice.
The camera will most likely be mounted on the Keck weather mast. The location offers power and communications along with a secure mounting point. What we learn is good news, from the mast there is a clear view of the complete TMT building site
What remains to be done is the paperwork. First we must seek and receive approval from the Office of Mauna Kea Management. Any changes to the outside of any of the facilities must be approved before work begins. I have done this in the past whenever I modify one of the weather instruments. Usually not a major hurdle, but one that must be done right.
I have supported the TMT in a number of small ways. It will be exciting to watch the construction, we have a ringside seat at Keck!
Postcard from the Summit – Testing
Lobster & Cup Coral
