New World Datsuns...

I do not have a view near the horizon in any direction, my house is in the way towards the south, and the duplex next door is in the way to the east/Southeast, plus there are trees that stick up even higher, and from the southwest to the northeast there is trees almost straight up, I will wait for them all to pass by over the months ahead, I really want to observe Mars again since I now understand all the issues I had 2 years ago and can avoid them.

I did see Venus between 2 trees towards the southwest as a crescent last year so I knew it was Venus, but things are so fuzzy looking thru that much atmosphere.

I have trees and houses blocking my view as well. I overslept and didn’t get up in time to drive to a higher elevation. I just thought it was cool to be able to see all of them “together”.

I planned to go to a dark site this evening but cancelled and everything was packed, the forecast changed between yesterday and today, yesterday it said average or better from 10pm to 3am or later, today it says only 11pm to 2am with up to 95% humidity for them 3 hours with possible dew issues and starting with 50% cloud cover, with 4 hours+ driving involved I decided not to go, last night would have been better.

The issue around here is that seeing is forecast as "poor" till 1am and it has been the same every night, but after 1am it does not get better even though it is forecast to improve, fact is it has got worse, I see fewer stars as the night passes, but average here is way different than average there, average here I cannot see galaxies while average there I will be able to see Galaxies, I even have a list of things I wanted to look at.

I have been messing around trying to get the altitude bearings to be less sticky, I have tried actual bearings on the front and it changed nothing, today I put Ivory soap on the existing bearings/pads and I will see if it is better tonight.

I went to a dark site last night, 2 hours each way, I was only able to observe 3 hours before the Moon came up and I called it a night as when it is bright enough out to see your shadow you cannot see a lot of the dim stuff anymore as that is why I drove to a dark site.

I bought two 2" filters recently from Don(eyepiecesect) and took them with me, I found the Veil Nebula with the lighter of the two filters, once I knew I had it centered in the eyepiece I removed the filter and I could still barely see it, but since it is in the Milky Way I likely would have missed it without the filter as when looking he Milky Way everything looks like a Nebula, the whole Milky Way band is kinda yellow at a "Dark Site" that is really dark, this Bortle 3 site I went to is not really that dark, the Portland light dome is to the south, and the Tacoma/Seattle light dome is to the north/northwest, I forgot to take a photo, I am pretty sure you all would have thought the sun had just set in that direction, but it is there all night in the same spot while the stars move towards the west all night.

I can say this with conviction, if you want to see the faint stuff, the first time you need to go a dark site so you see it and know what your looking for in your light polluted city, and some things your not going to be able to see in a bortle 7+ location, I found both sections of the Veil Nebula(NGC6992/NGC6960) for the first time, I also seen M101(galaxy) for the first time but it was fuzzy as even though it was clear and the sky was Transparent, the Seeing was average, I have been looking for M107(Globular Cluster) for a while now, I found it, it was right near where I have been searching all along, but even at the Dark Site it was very faint, I personally cannot understand how M80 can be a mag 8.3 and how M107 can be a mag 8 as it is much harder to find/see, I also could see M16, M17, M8, M20 with the filters much better, yes they can be seen without the filters, but I definitely can see more with the filters, and I can see more of these objects at the dark site than I can in my Bortle 7+ backyard, I thought M16 was just a star cluster.

I tried looking at Saturn and Jupiter, but even though it was cloud free, and the sky was Transparent(the best condition it can be), the Seeing was average or worse, I could not use high power eyepieces as it just looked blurry/out of focus, I can look at the planets with the Moon up, but what is the point when I cannot see anything clearly, I need a night with better Seeing and the same Transparency if I want to get a good look at the planets, but I can do that from my backyard and light pollution does not affect looking at the Planets or the Moon as much, still it is easier to observe everything from a Dark Site.

I again went to that dark site last night, normally the sky reading at the house is at best 1850ish or lower(I have had 1795), meter readings this low tend to go with only being able to see 20 stars in the sky or less which makes star hopping to new objects hard to say the least, the sky meter reading at Johnson Ridge on Mount Saint Helens was 2165, I have never seen a reading that high before(I forgot to get a reading last time), there were millions of stars in the sky, last time the seeing was average, this time it was Average 3/5 to good 4/5, last time the Veil Nebula was dim with the filter and almost invisible without the filter(I mentioned I likely would have missed it without the filter), this time with the filter it was obvious(I did not try without the filter this time), I even was able to see the "North American Nebula", but with this 16" dob the "field of view" was not large enough to see it all, and it does not look like the photos of it on the internet either, my eyes(all our eyes) do not see color well especially red, and that one is dominantly red in photos.

I found a lot of new things and seen some of the old things way better than ever before, still conditions were not good enough to see details in Galaxies, I found 4 new to me Galaxies in the big dipper, but they were all just smudges, after Saturn came up I spent a lot of time trying to see details on the planet, but I could not use my 8.8mm as the skies were not steady enough, with the 10mm I could get clear moments where I could see a cloud band and the gap in the rings, but it was just too small in the eyepiece for my old eyes to get a good look, I need to use the 8.8mm, 7mm, or 6.7mm to see details which I have in the past on Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, I am considering going again tomorrow night as righty now the forecast is for "Clear(no clouds), the sky is supposed to be "Transparent" which is the best it can be, and the Seeing is supposed to be "Good" which the only better rating is "Excellent 5/5", this could be the time I can use very high power on the Planets, before I left I seen all three Planets on the sky(Saturn/Jupiter/Mars), but all three will be higher in the sky in a few months so I can use higher power, I have only had one good look at Saturn last year where I could see the cloud bands, this August/September/October I hope to know all three like I do my Datsuns.

On my way to the dark site I almost hit a deer, I did not lock the tires up but if I had not slowed way down I would have hit it as it jumped right out in front of me, on the way home at 3am I did hit a very large Raccoon or Porcupine going 60mph, it happened so fast, whatever it was appeared to be eating something in the middle of the road/my lane and it was too late for me to even react, well I just went out and took some photos, it was a Porcupine, I am pretty sure it did not survive but I did not stop to find out, it bent my valance and maybe the fuel tank also, I heard it hit twice, the second time I think it was the tank, both bangs were very loud.





This is the dent it might have put in my tank, this dent has no rock marks.



I got 4 hours of observing before calling the night, I left at 2am and arrived home just before 4am, the first 50 miles I did not see any vehicles either way, the closer I got to the freeway the more vehicles I seen, the freeway was crowded with semi trucks and vehicles moving much faster than me and I was doing 75mph, more vehicles pasted me than I passed, only a couple semi trucks passed me.

I went to the dark site again last night, the sky meter reading was 2136. not as good as 2 nights ago, Transparency was not as good and it showed in the sky/eyepiece, I was not able to see stuff as good as the last visit, but I stayed there till 1:30am, I found a new to me Globular Cluster while searching, I have found 80+ percent of the globular clusters this way without any book or chart, the other 10 percent were found with charts/books before I found I enjoy searching, it is rewarding to find things while searching, it is even more rewarding at a dark site as I can see things I cannot see from my backyard, some things cannot be seen when the sky is gray/white and there are a 100 stars or less in the sky.

I tried looking at Mars before I left, but it was so small it was only a dot, it will be closer in October/November.

I did not run over or hit anything this trip except bugs that hit the windshield, that needs to be cleaned as it is hard to see thru it when the sun hits it or when on coming headlights hit it, also the tailgate is almost black now from the diesel exhaust, I guess I need a tip for the end of the pipe that points down.

I have not been doing a lot lately, it is too hot to work on a vehicle, and I do not have any project for the telescopes, but I bought 2 bare aluminum bicycle rims to make a lighter UTA for the 20" dob, I will post about that if I have a positive result.

I grew these specialty cucumbers called "Tasty Green" that are a trellis type, one got huge before I noticed it, they certainly are tasty, that is an average size banana and glass in the photo, that cucumber is over 16" long, the plants were grown from seeds.

Save the seeds out of that one. It's a proven winner.

DRIVEN wrote: ↑Thu Aug 11, 2022 6:17 pm Save the seeds out of that one. It's a proven winner.

I was thinking the same thing myself, not sure how to remove the seeds though, never even thought about it before, but it is a hybrid(says that on the package), so it might not produce viable seeds, and the package says it has very few small seeds.

Yeah, if it's a hybrid you could get anything next year.

I worked min the garden today, I do not know why I let two rows become one wide row but I did, so since I did not really get a lot of strawberries this year from the wide row I took the row closet to my path and the middle section out and made a new row.

I started and then thought take a photo.



Here it is with the new replacement row started.







And here it is with the watering system installed.





Over the next day or so I will plant starts from the rest of my rows that already have new starts, I will plant a start under each hole in the pipe, there are between 20 and 25 holes I believe, I plant right now because I will get strawberries next year if I do, you do not get strawberries from a plant planted in the spring unless it already has flowers when bought/planted.

I planted the strawberry starts while I was tidying up another row(pulling weeds), some are wilting, if they do not survive, I have plenty more starts, I have no shortage of starts, they shoot out every direction and fill between the rows like this row had done(first photo in last post).

Man, I wish I could grow strawberries here.

DRIVEN wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 5:48 pm Man, I wish I could grow strawberries here.

Why can't you grow strawberries?

Don't know, probably just the soil I have. I tried the first 2 years I was here and they just didn't grow well. 2nd year I planted a few in one of those tall terracotta chimney strawberry pots with 100% potting soil. Got a few berries but not what I'd call a success.

I keep building and amending my garden soil every year. As of now tomatoes and cucumbers do okay. Radishes did fine. Zucchini and squash grow like crazy! My okra is doing well too. I should probably PH test it and adjust accordingly.

I expanded my garden area for next year. I'm at almost 2000sq' now. I'm going to take it a lot more seriously going forward. I think my fruit trees and grapes will be real producers starting next season. It all takes time to establish.

It is the same with strawberries depending on when you plant them, if you plant them in the spring it will take 3 years before you get decent results, my new row will have a few strawberries next year(1.5 years old), but the year after that I should get a lot of Strawberries(2.5 years old).

I also found if I keep my strawberry plants in rows and not over grown they do better and produce more berries, letting 2 rows become one fat row produces less berries, and the berries I get are small, they do better when the plants are not crowding each other, I think I am going to remove 2/3rds of the plants in a couple of my older rows(leave younger plants) and see what happens next year, normally I just pull everything out and start over like I did that fat row.

I think weather also plays a part in results, we had a cool spring this year and I did get a few good berries early are a warm spell, but it got cold again and the bees went away(hibernation?) and I did not get much after that except small berries, when it finally warmed up in June strawberry season was over with, I do not recall seeing local strawberries at Chucks this year either, but I do not go to the stores but a couple times a month.

By the way, I have never seen really good strawberry plants in containers(but I have never tried growing them that way), I did alright with Tomatoes with auto watering, but if the auto watering failed, I would come home to wilted plants which did not do as good after being stressed like that.

I did some thinning, I selected smaller plants that were in the middle to keep, here is the row I started on.



Here that row and the one next to it thinned out.



I did the 3rd row a week ago, but I was not as aggressive, I will leave the last two rows alone until these rows take off/start growing again.



My strawberry scrap pile has grown.

I found NGC7009 tonight(search it), I just stumbled into it in search mode, I had no idea what it was and had to ask what it was on the telescope forum, some guy in Australia told me and said it was not easy to find, it is a magnitude 8.3 object which is nearly impossible to find in a light polluted sky, my sky meter reading was 1873/1874 which is awful, but the second best night I have had since buying the meter a year ago.

I actually thought it was Neptune, Uranus, or Pluto, it was a very small light blue disc in my eyepiece, but when I searched it there were no planets in the area except Saturn and it is not blue, what is hilarious is that the name of NGC7009 is the Saturn Nebula.

I searched it as I had no idea what it was. Pretty cool that you can see something that far away.