A nice telescopic planetary conjunction coming up in a couple of weeks…
Mars and Neptune on the evening of Thursday 2018 Dec 06.
Mars will set around 23:00 EST in the west, so anytime before that where you have the horizons, I encourage all astronomers to get out and image this.
Mars will be Mag 0.1
Neptune will be Mag 7.9
So even some of you with DSLR and telephoto lens should be able to pick this up!
The Davis Vantage Vue weather station dropped off the air one night, but we didn’t notice until a day or two later. The thing is, it came back up in the daytime. Hmmm.. That sounds like a dead battery and a solar panel picking up the slack.
Haul the stepladder out back to the station, open it up test the battery and lo and behold.. it was lower than 2.7vdc. It is a lithium CR123 battery that is nominally rated at above 3v and when it falls below 2.7v it is considered dead. Bummer. And it was only 10 months old!
Looked back through the records and it looks like we bought two of them back in 2017 December… do you think we could find the other one? Not a chance.
It is not a common battery and it took a few more days to track one down, at a better price of only $5, and then install on Saturday morning.. so we have lost a few days of nighttime weather data but all in all it is not too bad.
We also bought a 2nd battery (good price remember?) and this time it is taped to the internal receiver station! So far … good data day and night!
Note to self in the springtime… lower the station from the top of the existing 8′ 4×4 post to something lower down that does not require a stepladder to access.
In a recent audit, we came across a linux fedora server that was actually two versions out of date, not just one. Somehow it was missed, or something went wrong the first time.
So this morning we did a double back to back upgrade of linux fedora 27 to 28 and then 28 to 29.
It went flawlessly and quickly. The server had a 120gb ssd drive, which helped a lot for the speediness side of things.
All in all, less than one hour for both upgrades, including approx 1GB download for each of them.
The last plug for SSD drives is an upgrade we did to the SuperSid data logging computer. The 20-40KHz loop antenna is well away from the house and the coax line that runs to the amplifier is maybe 25′. So the data logging computer stays outside in an outbuilding all summer and winter long.. and those extremes of temperature are no conducive to moving parts, like spinning hard drives.
So the Acer Aspire One netbook unit was shut down, brought inside, reconnected to a wired network, and a bare metal disk image was made with the free version of macrium reflect v4. That was about 40 GB, stored on an external USB drive. Its keyboard removed, then the panel removed, allowing access to the SATA hard drive. Two ribbon cables needed to come off, which caused some issues later putting them back. In any event, an old 120GB SSD was installed and the unit reassembled… that took a little time but eventually it was all back together.
The nextstep was to boot from a macreium reflect rescue media, an 8GB USB flash drive and then restore from the external usb drive. After an hour or, the restore was complete. After reboot the system was up and running.
It was reconnected to the Supersid receiver this morning and all seems good to go for the upcoming winter.
The 2018 garlic planting is complete. Still no final numbers but on the order of 85 types and over 1000 cloves planted and covered. The bulbil project is also completed with over 50 bulbils planted and covered. Phew! The relief!
The weather has been worse than in past years, colder, wetter and grosses to be planting outdoors. It was not nearly as enjoyable this year as the last night of planting went well into the darkness with 1-2C temperatures and spitting drizzle.
Cracking the bulbs in advance was a great time saver, indoors vs outdoors.
Garlic in VegBeds 1, 2
Garlic in Vegbeds 1,2,3
Garlic in Vegbed9
Garlic in VegBed10
Garlic bulbils in Vegbed7
Another six months, another release of Linux Fedora. We are up to version 29 now, and with each version the problems are fewer and the results are faster.
We are updating server class systems today. We start with the least important, least critical server and try the process out on it.
A few commands, a lot of downloads and a reboot, and the first upgrade from Linux Fedora 28 to 29 completed in under 20 minutes.
Granted this machine had a 120GB SSD drive and a gigabit network connection. Still very fast!
But the best part … no issues! All services continued to run, did not break under the strain of the upgrade. That is pure gold.
That went so well, I tried it out on a workstation software version. This one not so good. It’s been 2+ hours and appears to be hung. Granted no SSD drive.
Updated 2018 Nov 01. Two more servers have been successfully upgraded with no issues whatsoever. Awesome!
StarlightCascade Gardens & Observatory Weather Station
Yarker Ontario Canada
LIGHT FROST (-1C) HEAVY FROST (-3C)
Year #days #weeks Year #days #weeks
2003 Apr30-Oct23 176 25 2003 Apr24-Nov08 198 28
2004 May08-Oct11 156 22 2004 Apr16-Nov03 201 29
2005 May17-Oct20 156 22 2005 Mar13-Oct21 222 32
2006 no data no data 2006 no data no data
2007 May18-Oct12 147 21 2007 May13-Oct13 153 22
2008 May06-Oct06 154 22 2008 Apr30-Oct07 160 23
2009 May13-Sep19 129 18 2009 Apr17-Oct12 179 26
2010 Jun13-Oct10 119 17 2010 Jun11-Nov01 143 20
2011 Apr22-Sep17 149 21 2011 Apr22-Oct06 167 24
2012 Apr30-Oct08 162 23 2012 Apr30-Oct12 165 24
2013 May14-Sep16 125 18 2013 May14-Oct29 168 24
2014 May18-Sep19 124 18 2014 Apr25-Sep19 147 21
2015 May23-Oct10 140 20 2015 May23-Oct17 147 21
2016 May18-Sep25 130 19 2016 May10-Sep25 138 20
2017 May11-Oct01 143 20 2017 May10-Oct17 160 23
2018 May12-Oct05 146 21 2018 Apr23-Oct14 174 25
min 119 17 min 138 20
average 144 20 average 168 24
median 146 21 median 165 24
max 176 25 max 222 32
stddev 16 2 stddev 24 3
From Baen.com:
FIRST NEW HONOR HARRINGTON NOVEL IN FIVE YEARS! New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and international bestselling phenomenon David Weber delivers book #19 in the multiple New York Times best-selling Honor Harrington series, the first new Honor Harrington novel since 2013’s Shadow of Freedom.
This arrived on Wednesday and I was done on Friday. One of the first in a while books that was hard to put down in the series.
Heads and shoulders above the last few of the series and I can happy to see it end on a high note.
This book nicely completes the run of 19 books in the Honor Harrington series (although there are still many spinoffs) and is recommended for anyone that found any of the books interesting.
Fall is usually the ideal time to go out back and observe and image the sky. Cooler temperatures, and most importantly, no bugs (mosquitos, black flies, deer flies, horse flies and more). Good intentions abound and then reality hits.
Our newest imaging platform “Serenity” has been sitting idle for almost a month. Some issues in commissioning a new observatory is normal and we are almost there… just need a few more days and nights of work to finish it off!
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In this case, the OSB roof has a leak. I suspect it will be replaced with real plywood in the spring, but in the meantime we are looking at a winter temporary fix.
The new dew shield is working wonders. A dew heating strap has been repaired and installed but not yet used as the power supply needs to be configured and tested.
The only good news is that the amount of dark sky at night is increasing and there is now time to get out in the evening under reasonably dark skies.
We are so far behind this fall it is not even close to funny. And to help out (not!) it has bee too cold and windy to accomplish anything appreciable in the outdoors when we are home.
As part of the data management part of our heirloom garlic operation, we need good signage in the garden that will withstand the elements and be able to be easily read. Our best solution to date is laser printer large font names, laminated and then cut into pieces and stapled onto 1×2 wooden stakes.
In the past years we reused old wooden stakes, cutting off the rotted bits on the bottom every year, until we are left with very short stakes.
SO the old signage comes off the short stake and gets reattached to the new 2 and 2/3′ long stakes. In addition, with multiple rows of the same type, we need to create some new markers so that *each and every row* has signage.
It helps come spring and also in the summer harvest time!
Planting should occur within the week. Over 75 types with over 850 plants last year, this year will be similar.
After my last great prediction for clear skies and planning an imaging session earlier in the week… and then having it totally cloud over hours earlier than predicted… I decided to wait and see about last night.
After Survivor, I went out and had the north half of the sky clear and the south half full of high cloud interspersed with sucker holes.
Hmm.. it’s been some time.. lets try anyways.
Opened up the Imaging platform to discover water inside. Arrg!
The cover had come off the scope and was crumpled on the floor and wet, the scope was damp but not wet and covered with a fine layer of white particles.. unsure what yet.. will have to check in the daytime.
I had noticed the serial cable end of the telescope computer interface was showing signs of rust, so I put the end connector of the new usb-serial adapter into a ziplock bag, zipped it up most of the way and put it on a shelf with the cable going up but not touching the roof or walls.
The bag was full of water 🙁
I had just added last week a shelf to cover the laptop, JUST IN CASE, and the laptop stayed dry.
In any event.. it was already late, the place was open so I went ahead and did three runs of Saturn (30 sec, 30 sec autoaligned and 10sec autoaligned), and Mars (same).
Saturn was so low and covered with enough cloud that the exposures were relatively very long.. 89 and 98 msec.. meaning only 10-11 framespersecond.
Sat_20180927_014503_ZWO ASI290MC_Exposure=98ms_pipp_lapl4_ap38reg50p.png
Mars was higher, almost due south, but still enough bad cloud, transparency poor and seeing poor, with 9ms exposures, more than normal.
The Moon had also come up and was in the eastern clouds, lighting up the sky.
These are the best results in UT time.
Mars_20180927_015102_ZWO ASI290MC_Exposure=9ms_pipp_lapl4_ap22reg25p.png
The Napanee Garden Club (aka The Lennox & Addington Horticultural Society) met last night at the Napanee Fire Hall Community Room at 7pm.
The business session started with minutes from past meetings, treasurers report and news in general.
Afterward there was no guest speaker, but rather reports and discussions from all members on “how did your garden grow” this past summer.
26 people were in attendance.
We attended the annual Verona Garlic Festival at the Lions Club Field on Sunday September 2nd, 2018. I believe we have made it to every one since they started, but maybe? missed one sometime.
It is always fun to see all of the growers together in one spot, and as always, we tend to find one or two new types to buy seed for and try out.
Some folks have a *LOT* of garlic!