Swimming, 28th September 2018

Posted on September 28, 2018 by james

Got out on poolside today to find the school session prior to the public one over-running. By the time we could actually get into the water it was already ten minutes into the hour session. I was not happy 🙁

Despite swimming right up to the very last few seconds of the session I didn’t get quite as much as I wanted done. The plan was to repeat the sessions I’ve done already this week. I was getting pretty tired by the end though, so I can live with the loss this time.

USRPT distance this year: 54,250m
Total distance this year: 142,600m

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Swimming, 27th September 2018

Posted on September 28, 2018 by james

Same thing as Monday and Tuesday today. Just getting myself back into it.

USRPT distance this year: 54,250m
Total distance this year: 141,300m

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A reminder of six months ago

Posted on September 25, 2018 by james

I just found these photos sitting around. Given how hot this summer was and then how wet it’s been over the last week or so, it’s hardly believable that back in mid-March this was how my home looked.

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Swimming, 25th September 2018

Posted on September 25, 2018 by james

Another swim just to get back into things. The water still doesn’t really feel as though it’s back to the usual temperature, but it was very cold last night and there was a frost this morning so perhaps that didn’t help. The pool is hardly the best insulated of buildings.

USRPT distance this year: 54,250m
Total distance this year: 139,800m

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“Astro Swag”

Posted on September 25, 2018 by james

It’s been some time since I posted about oacapture, but work progresses with that as I have time. One of the things I’ve been working on is using an external timer and camera controller for generating timestamped images of occultations. I was sent some new hardware by the person who has been doing that side of things this week. He works at an observatory in the US. One of the other staff there is retiring and left some mementos of his time working on the NASA SOFIA project (used for observing occultations, but also and perhaps more famously for mapping the Cosmic Microwave Background) for his co-workers. A few found their way into my package 🙂

My daughter was particularly impressed with them, so I need to be careful they don’t disappear 🙂

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Swimming, 24th September 2018

Posted on September 25, 2018 by james

Almost two full weeks since my last swim, and I am not very happy about it. The boiler at the pool I swim at broke down on the day I last swam and has taken some time to repair. Whilst there are other pools I could swim at, they don’t have public sessions at particularly convenient times for me.

My plan for this week therefore is just to get some lengths in and get back into the swing of things. I didn’t make the best start by being told off for being (just) outside the changing room entrance two minutes before the public session was due to start. There’s a school session running prior to the public one and they don’t like that apparently, though it’s the first time in the three years I’ve been swimming at the pool that anyone has said anything about it. Unfortunately making it quite clear that you’re waiting for them to leave is the only way to ensure that they do actually attempt to leave the pool when they should rather than hanging about eating into the public session 🙁

USRPT distance this year: 54,250m
Total distance this year: 138,300m

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Building an observatory. Construction #17

Posted on September 25, 2018 by james

I’ve started work on the frames for the sides of the roof now. Below is my solution for fitting the wheels (I’ve decided to use just four as they’re supposed to be good to carry 250kg each and the entire roof shouldn’t come to that much).

Getting the 3m lengths of tube into the pillar drill to make the holes for the bolts was awkward. Not as awkward as it would have been if I’d extended them to their final 3.6m length first however.

I’ve ordered some stainless bolts, washers and nyloc nuts for the final fitting of the wheels as they’re bound to get damp and avoiding rust on the bolts would be useful.

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Building an observatory. Construction #16

Posted on September 25, 2018 by james

The next step in the roof construction was to join some of the roof frames together. If I’d joined all four however I’d have ended up with something too big to manage, so I’ve paired up the four frames to make two sections of the roof. I’ll join these to the sides of the roof individually and then fit the horizontal centre sections afterwards.

The nights are closing in now and again I had to go out to photograph the results after dark 🙂

The next step is to make up the frames for the sides and decide how I’m going to fix the wheels on.

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Building an observatory. Construction #15

Posted on September 25, 2018 by james

Time to start welding!

This took somewhat longer than I planned (what doesn’t? :D. In part because it’s years since I did any welding and most of that was stick welding, not MIG. But perhaps the biggest problem was cleaning the (anti-corrosion, I assume) coating off the steel so the weld would form properly. Joining cut ends together was no problem at all, but butting an end to the wall of a tube was very awkward unless the steel was cleaned well.

I did at least manage to get all the roof frames made up before darkness fell.

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Swimming, 11th September 2018

Posted on September 25, 2018 by james

Another attempt at my 51s USRPT set, and another sorry failure 🙁

Better than yesterday however, in that I managed one more 50 and my first failure was later in the set. Still not good though.

USRPT distance this year: 54,250m
Total distance this year: 136,800m

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