This is the view from my study on this blistering hot Wednesday – it’s now coming up to 5:00 p.m. and it’s still too hot to do anything sensible indoors or outdoors. Managed to fit a solid-state magnetic compass in the mini-WASP dome today (the reason for this little beauty will become apparent in the coming weeks) – and I measured up, and ordered the metal for a new strengthening rig to go on the Celestron, so-called, “Heavy Duty Wedge”. The design of the wedge isn’t too bad (I have seen worse) but there is an open ended box section that deforms when a heavy scope like the C11 is cantilevered all over the place. Up until now I have securely bolted a 2.2mm Aluminium plate over the box-end which has done a fairly good job of stiffening up the wedge – but I could do a lot better. I intend to securely bolt a 6mm plate over the end, and will report back if this has improved things at all – I will be very unhappy if it makes no difference at all.
O.K. so the view from my study includes the washing line, which I feel brings the whole image a bit more down to earth, and then of course there’s the hammock with the Sun umbrella strategically placed nearby for yours truly to enjoy his early retirement in the sunshine 🙂
