Waimea Plains Panorama
Channels
Spotting Kahoʻolawe
Twice in two weeks I have now seen Kahoʻolawe, this also marks the second occasion I have seen the island in almost a year. You might think me a little crazy, but I swear, I really have seen it! Look, I have a photo!
Transmissions
The ScopeStuff 2″ Crayford Focuser
When shopping for a focuser you face a lot of choices. From the cheap eBay Chinese options to the top-of-the-line Moonlights and Feather Touch. I once again perused these options when buying a new focuser for the Cave Astrola.
I considered the cheapest end of the market, a few options found on eBay, and again at the top-of-the-line, machined works of art that cost as much as some telescopes. This time I was limiting the budget for restoring the Astrola, not wanting to spend much more than a hundred on the focuser to keep the cost of the whole effort down.
New Moon
During this new Moon a partial solar eclipse will sweep across much of Antarctica and the southern tip of South America. At maximum the Moon will cover about 60% of the Sun.
Restoring the Cave Astrola
I do enjoy a nice project I can work on, get my hands dirty, and use my skills. A classic telescope in need of restoration? Just the thing.
This telescope was literally rescued from the trash. Matt, the owner of the excellent Mountain Road Cycles in Waimea found the telescope at the transfer station.
Matt put a message into the folks at the observatory, who represent more than a few of his customers. The info was quickly forwarded to me, as everyone here knows I build and restore telescopes for fun.
Continue reading “Restoring the Cave Astrola”SB757 Relating the the University of Hawaii
This one is weird. This one is also an example of the strange maneuvers used by our state legislators to pass laws, particularly laws that face substantial opposition. Of these maneuvers, gut and replace is probably the most despicable, the wholesale replacing of a bill’s contents with different text of totally different intent.
Why another bill with the same language? The first bill, SB2325 is still active and making it’s way through the process.
Continue reading “SB757 Relating the the University of Hawaii”
Hibiscus
Dreaming of a Cave Astrola
Restoring the 8″ Cave Astrola has me again looking at these classic telescopes. Reading the history of Tomas Cave and Cave Optical. Looking at the old advertisements and remembering things long thought forgotten. I may never have owned one before, but the Astrolas still had an impact upon me years ago.
My Astrola is now operational, with final assembly and collimation completed a week ago. So far I have used it for several evening sessions of observing from the driveway. The result is several pages of notes in the observing log, wandering through nebulae, clusters, and binary stars in Orion, Canis Major, and Puppis.
