January 16

Today was the first day at the observatory in 2010 and it was memorable, at least for John. He came in yesterday and stayed over night. At about 4 AM there occurred a 4.5 magnitude earthquake centered about 30 miles away. He woke to a mild rolling motion and the growl that's frequently heard with quakes - then he went right back to sleep. He's lived in California his whole life so he's kind of jaded toward quakes. He almost forgot to even mention it to me.

My trip to the site was a little different than usual. There was a half mile back up off the exit ramp of the I-15 in Temecula; usually its straight to he bottom of the ramp to the light and turn left for about 35 miles. Today, after about 20 minutes I got to the light and to the left under the I-15 I could see a bad accident and all the exiting traffic was simply directed straight thru the light back on to the highway! No police on the freeway to direct cars away from the exit to begin with. I had to go about 5 miles to the next exit and find my way back north to Route 79 in Temecula. I lost about a 40 minutes.

When I finally got there John was already at work but on something a bit different but related. Like myself, John still has a lease on an observing pad that he's been trying to sell. He was able to sell it over the holidays if he threw in a new outdoor table. This was related to the observatory because the money he collected is helping to fund our further work.

John and his new workbench. The under structure of the bench is made from some of the steel we removed from the observatory but were going to throw out as it is unusable for the observatory.

My work today involved replacing the horizontally sliding window between the observing deck and the warm room with a solid wall. Every observatory owner we have spoken to has nothing good to say about this kind of window. There's always reflections and, in the dark it acts like a mirror when you're in the warm room, plus the faint light coming into the observing deck frequently slightly fogs the image files in the camera. I will be placing webcams in the observing area so I can see what is going on by the telescope.

Window from the observing deck before today's work.

The wild card thrown into today's mix is the weather forecast for the coming week. You probably heard about it already. On the coast where we live we can expect up to 8 inches of rain from Monday thru Thursday. Inland, west facing slopes can expect up to 30 inches of rain - that's right - 30 inches! This is due to a line of El Nino storms in the Pacific. At the observatory the forecast is for 4 to 5 inches of rain. These storms are expected to be the most intense in 15 years and the forecasters have actually described them as "biblical". I've pretty much gotten used to their hyperbole but this sounds pretty serious. If the desert gets that kind of rain, the dirt roads to our site will definitely get washed out. The longer term forecast is already for another set of storms the following week. I'm not expecting the decimal point in the rainfall total to be moved over one decimal point like usual in the forecast. So today we had to finish what we've started once we remove the current window.

First I built the replacement structure from 2 X 6s since the cinder block wall was just about 7 1/2 inches thick. Then I removed the existing window. The original wood frame was screwed into the cinder blocks but the window frame itself was simply jammed tightly in place against the wood frame. Friction alone held that window tightly in place for twenty years!

Empty window space. Its just over four feet across and two feet high.

Once the window was removed I inserted the new frame and it was as tight as I had hoped. Once in place I screwed it into the cinder block wall. Then I used a silicone gun to fill in any spaces between the frame and the blocks. Lastly I screwed a piece of plywood against the wooden frame. Fiberglass insulation was secured against the inner plywood surface and another piece of plywood screwed into place against the inside of the wooden frame. By that time, John just finished his work bench and we broke for lunch, giving the silicone some time to dry. Once we got back from town, I painted the plywood both inside and outside with the same color we previously used for the warm room.

Painted wall replacement

This shot is from the observing deck and is currently the outside wall of the warm room. The outside was painted solely to give the wood some protection from the rain next week. Much of this wall will be covered by paneling when John completes his warm room on the deck.

If you remember, last time several observatories were having their cement slabs poured. Here is a picture of that area with the new construction. This time you can also see a third new observatory a bit around the hill from the other two.Here is a shot of another variation being worked on nearby. This amateur decided to build two small structures - one for his telescope and the other his warm room. The smaller structure by the car is the observatory that slides away from the telescope on rails.

I am hoping for a break before the next set of storms next week and a quick repair to the washed out roads. I'd like to start the rewiring project and get that done in one day. Once that is complete I can build the new dividing wall in the warm room that will make it two smaller rooms - one would be my control room and TV area, plus a small sleeping area.