by Theodore R Frimet

a time for a view

Ah, my friend
Behold the antiquity of a virus
Cast upon this earth.

Spewed before the great waters of life
Like a thief traveling silent in the night
And death does not become her.

No cavalier attitude can sustain
the many nor the one
For all to perish, shall anon.

Due to a customer cancellation on Monday, I have Sunday night open for astronomy. Hurray!!

I ran into some difficulty with my Bob’s Knobs, last week – so I have reinstalled them and re-collimating an SCT this evening.

Evidently, it is a bad idea to try to use Venus for collimation. LoL.

Judging from a Dark Sky app, it looks like Jenny Jump is Clear Skies throughout the evening.

Wind gusts look more than marginal, though.

Temperatures will range from a balmy 42 degrees at around 7 PM and drop to 28 degrees at or around 1 AM.

I plan to wear a jump suit, and strap on the extreme cold boots for a one last show.

Anyone with plans to come up, or recommendations?

Well, one other soul did come to the Jump, that evening. With no moon, and stable sky, the views were pretty good.

Truth be told, I spent only 15 minutes collimating and much more time (sigh) “auto-aligning” the telescope.

I truly need a right angle finder scope. The dippers guide stars don’t mesh for me at all, upside down!

Fortune finally smiled upon me by the good graces of Sirius and Capella. Amazing work done by a 13 year old telescope, here at Jenny Jump.

Almost all “what’s up tonight” for the Meade Autostar II filled my eyepieces at 28mm.

Other members, both from UACNJ, and AAAP, were hunkered down in their observatories. One amateur duly noted below, makes the nights statement for all of us:

I for one am home and hiding, surrounded by my massive stockpiles of toilet paper, like all good Americans.

a brief Q & A

Question. Recently the State of New Jersey has placed a night time travel restriction into place. I don’t completely understand why 8 PM is the cut-off. Does the virus know what time it is?

Answer. It’s a curfew. They don’t want adolescents to start throwing toilet paper rolls at each other. Clearly, those rambunctious amateur astronomers are all cloistering themselves in toilet paper, hunkered away for the long haul. It is only a matter of time, before the zombie effect takes hold, cabin fever aside, and they launch the final wave. Let loose the canonical roll, and beware the traveler that stains the dark of the night!!