Author Archives: james

Solar PV Generation Update October 2012

Posted on October 3, 2012 by james

And so the abnormal weather continues… Generation for September this year totalled 333kWh, up 7.5% from the previous September and a somewhat astounding 32% more than would normally be expected for September. That increase completely covers the failure to meet … Continue reading →

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Observation Report 8 September 2012

Posted on October 3, 2012 by james

Another moonlit night washing the less bright objects out, but clear enough to step out with the 10″ dob again… First up was M39 in Cygnus. I found this one tricky to locate, but eventually got to it starting from … Continue reading →

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Observation Report 6 September 2012

Posted on October 3, 2012 by james

Very poor seeing on this particular night. I couldn’t even be sure I could make out the four stars in the “body” of Usra Minor, so the conditions were clearly not at all good. Nonetheless I got out for a … Continue reading →

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EQ3-2 motor gearbox reduction ratio

Posted on October 2, 2012 by james

I’ve decided there’s nothing more I can do with my EQ3-2 mechanics to improve the backlash that’s painfully obvious in the DEC axis. What backlash there is left (about twelve seconds at the 8x speed when changing direction) appears to … Continue reading →

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Observation Report 21 August 2012

Posted on September 28, 2012 by james

This was my first decent length session with the 10″ dob and a good night for it. Checking Ursa Minor suggested a NELM of at least 5.70, so I shan’t be complaining in that respect, although there was a small … Continue reading →

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Arrival of my 27mm Tele Vue Panoptic

Posted on September 28, 2012 by james

Whilst my Baader Genuine Orthos are fine in my 10″ dob the largest focal length I have is 18mm and the longer focal length lenses I have from my Revelation kit just aren’t up to coping with such a fast … Continue reading →

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Cloud Towers

Posted on September 28, 2012 by james

I looked out of the window this evening to see this unusual cloud formation above the northern end of the Quantock Hills. I don’t recall that I’ve seen anything like it before. I can’t imagine that the “pillars” are related … Continue reading →

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Why I’m cancelling my Tesco credit card

Posted on September 28, 2012 by james

Taking money out of a cashpoint machine on a credit card is something I would never do, so I tend not to read the terms and conditions that apply to doing so. It’s just something that wouldn’t happen, so I … Continue reading →

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Keeping recordings and DVB channels when moving MythTV

Posted on September 28, 2012 by james

Thanks to a server dying I’ve been moving my MythTV installation to a new system. I wanted to install from scratch to clean out a load of old settings and other data that have been hanging around for years (I’ve … Continue reading →

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Clearing BIOS RAID metadata for CentOS6 install

Posted on September 28, 2012 by james

Today I was trying to install CentOS6 on a server put together from bits and pieces I had lying about. The CentOS installer would not include either of the disks I’d used because it claimed they had BIOS RAID metadata … Continue reading →

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