Garlic planting prep time

Oct22
by catz on October 22, 2018 at 12:31 and modified on October 22, 2018. at 12:31
Posted In: garlic

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.

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serenity Imaging session

Sep27
by catz on September 27, 2018 at 08:35 and modified on October 4, 2018. at 11:33
Posted In: astronomy

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

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L&A Hort met last night

Sep20
by catz on September 20, 2018 at 14:10
Posted In: gardening

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.

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Verona Garlic Festival

Sep19
by catz on September 19, 2018 at 09:45
Posted In: gardening, garlic


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!

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Gardening in September

Sep19
by catz on September 19, 2018 at 09:08
Posted In: gardening

Another strange month for weather and gardening. High temperatures of 31.7C and low temperatures of 2.2C, all in the last 18 days.
Most of the tomatos were hit by blight in August and we started pulling out various whole beds of them this past weekend.
Tonight is another low temperature forecast so we will be covering up the plants that still have some hope left of harvesting… ie the pepper plants.

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Serenity unfolds

Sep14
by catz on September 14, 2018 at 08:10
Posted In: astronomy


This is a 45 second video of the SCGO Serenity Observatory opening up for the evening. This is a 4’x4′ imaging platform with offset roof and offset doors (to cover gaps from wind and rain).
The scope has a blue fabric cover just in case of driving winds and water leaks.

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Dew Heaters

Sep11
by catz on September 11, 2018 at 10:10
Posted In: astronomy

After a dewy FallNStars star party weekend it was time to go back and start working on making work all of the various dew heating bits and pieces we have laying around.

I found a bag of heaters, and a mouse nest. Got rid of the mouse nest and discovered a hole in the middle of the 40″ heater, mainly the felt
cover with a few nibbles on the heater as well. And on another 6″ heater, the end velcro strap was totally gone.

So.. All of these items are now stored inside a plastic bin. Yes, I know this will not stop the mouse built it will slow him down.. and I will be
able to see inside and if I see him, wave a goodbye! Will repair these two in the next few days.

So, a kendrick 40″ strap will work on a 12″ diameter telescope (C=D*Pi) D=C/Pi=40/3.14 = 12.7″

The 19″ strap (19/3.14=6) is good for a 6″ diameter telescope and the 6″ is good (6/3.14=1.9) for a 1.25″ eyepiece.

Resistance wise, the 6″=52 ohms, the 19″ is 9.4 ohms and the 40″ is 5.2 ohms

V=IR, Power=IV= V^2/R so

the 6″ strap at 52 ohms at 12 vdc gives 12^2/52=144/52= 2.77 watts

the 19″ strap at 9.4 ohms at 12vdc gives 12^2/9.4=144/9.4= 15.3 watts

the 40″ strap at 5.2 ohms at 12vdc gives 12^2/5.2=144/5.2 = 27.7 watts

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And suddenly, The Roughriders are in 2nd place!

Sep10
by catz on September 10, 2018 at 11:13 and modified on September 10, 2018. at 11:13
Posted In: life the universe and everything


And suddenly, The Roughriders are in 2nd place!
Amazing how that happens over the course of a few weeks.
Saturdays game was recorded so we could watch it later.. and the (@#$(^@#% TSN MOVED it to another channel with only 3 minutes left in the game, a very close game with many lead changes, to show the start of the Edmonton Calgary game. Who in their right mind would preferentially show the beginning of a game over the closing moments of a game? What Moron is in charge of this? TSN! I’m talking to You!

The CFL does provide video highlights and we did catch the last bit of action but that was not the same as moving the endofgame from the common TSN1 channel to other TSN channels… THAT NOT EVERYONE HAS.
Arrg!

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Got Cloud?

Sep06
by catz on September 6, 2018 at 10:12 and modified on September 6, 2018. at 10:12
Posted In: astronomy


It’s been a week since our last astronomical imaging session. Perhaps this satellite image of CLOUD helps to explain why. That and the high humidity leaves transparency very low.

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IAU2009 Collector card reprint

Sep06
by catz on September 6, 2018 at 10:08
Posted In: astronomy


We’ve heard a rumour that the RASC National Observing Committee is having a reprint run of three of the astronomy collector cards pictured above. This is great news. They were a great hit back in the International Year of Astronomy 2009 and continued to be appreciated at every outreach event we’ve had until they ran out.

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Serenity Image Run #5

Aug31
by catz on August 31, 2018 at 07:36 and modified on August 31, 2018. at 07:46
Posted In: astronomy

On the night of Thursday 2018 August 30th EDT, or Friday 2018 Aug 31 UT, I went out in the intermittent cloud and heavy dew to run a test of the Serenity Imaging Platform with a variety of barlow lenses.
Seeing was poor, transparency was poor, no mosquitos! but dew was falling even as the sun was setting.
Jupiter was still visible this early evening so I pointed and aligned on it and did a regular image run of 30 seconds with firecapture align on.


This is the result, worse than past nights but some surface detail is there.
This image was firecapture flipY (ie one inversion of the Y axis, so north should be up). Exposure time was up a lot due to the cloud and poor transparency.

Pointed over to Saturn, near zenith but a lot of intermittent cloud.
There were three barlows: a x2 Antares (lower cost), a x2 Celestron (a little more) and a x3 televue (a lot more).
The three images below are 30 second imaging runs, the first two at 100ms exposures and roughly 150 frames, the last at 190ms and roughly 80 frames. They were then processed and stacked using the best 25% of the frames.
The absolute low number of frames stacked is why they look so noisy. Only 40 frames on the first two and 20 on the last.
Focus is far more critical and is far worse in these images. Surface detail is lacking after registax wavelet processing.
Each barlow lens is mechanically different, with the lens mounted at different distances, requiring a coarse focus adjustment when switching from one to the other.


x2 Antares
x2 celestron
x3 televue

No dew shields on the corrector plate of the telrad yet… those are still coming. No dew heater power yet either.
Targets generally move out of the barlow Field of View when I step anywhere inside or move around inside the imaging platform. I was hoping the heavy construction (deck blocks on gravel on limestone rock, 2×8 joists, 12″ on centre, 7/16 OSB floor) would minimize or eliminate it.

Results:

No real quality difference was seen between the barlows, as the images were too poor to judge. Will have to repeat in better seeing and transparency.

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Garlic processing

Aug29
by catz on August 29, 2018 at 15:17
Posted In: garlic

It’s that time… the garlic has been drying for a month, more than needed in the new drying shed, but the weather has not been cooperating.
In general, the batch of garlic type comes off the drying rack, gets its top and bottoms cut off. They are counted, then weighed en masse so we can calculate the average and not have to weigh individuals, and then size them in general with a sizing board (known size holes in a plywood board).
Then they get put into a paper bag marked with their type and number, and then go into the cold room.
In a few weeks we will go back into that cold room and select seed for planting in late October/early November.

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