April 14

Today was a very big day - all day. First of all, I was scheduled to do a tour for a group of high school students at Palomar Observatory at 10:30 so I headed out from home about 7:45. There are two ways of driving there. One is the coast route that takes the I-5 down to Oceanside and then east on Rte. 76. That's the shortest route at 82 miles; the second route is the inland route - over the Coast Range, down the I-15, and then east on Rte. 76 but that's 100 miles. That's the route I took this morning to avoid he commuter traffic into San Diego that can get bad very quickly as you get into the Oceanside area. I got to Palomar about 10 AM and met Scott, the PR director, and two other docents. I was just in time to hear a news announcement from Cal Tech - Palomar actually imaged several planets outside the solar system - this was the first time an actual disk of a planet was imaged rather than appearing as just a pinpoint like a star. So much for being only the 15th biggest telescope in the world. I was able to use handouts of the announcement as part of the tour in the morning. Then the students got something of a rare treat. While the tour was in progress maintenance work was going on with the wheels that turn the dome being lubricated. To lubricate all the wheels, the dome must be turned as each set of wheels become accessible at a service door. The students were able to not only see the dome turn from inside but they were able to go up on the catwalks, both inside and outside, and get a ride on the dome. Its a very strange feeling if you are on the inside catwalk because the dome turns so effortlessly that at first you think that the telescope in the center is turning and not you and the dome. You feel no motion or vibration. After the tour was over at 12:30 we did a quick recap at the docent center. Then we got the occasional perk we anticipate for volunteering for this work. Scott showed us a small file cabinet that was full of historical photos of the Observatory. They were all extra copies that he found in an old storage room and he told us to go through them and help ourselves!

By 1 PM I was ready to head over to my observatory at Anza. This was sort of a test ride for the future when I hope to drive regularly between the two places instead of always the long drive from home. From one place to another the distance is twelve miles as the crow flies. However, the actual drive involves driving down Palomar (which is actually a long elevated ridge rather than a mountain peak) and around the east flank of the mountain past Lake Henshaw and back west. That 12 mile straight line is actually a 60 mile, one hour drive! But at least its through beautiful country. In fact, the area around Lake Henshaw is quite surprising. Its a large flat grassy plain centered around the lake about 3,000 feet above sea level. For twenty miles I did not see one car in either direction. Finally about 2 Pm I got to my observatory.

John had accomplished quite a bit last weekend. He built the walls and roof for his warm room in the observing area and got as far as covering it with tar paper. My main task was to correct an error I made last week. You are going to laugh about this. Take a look at the picture below that I had in last week's blog:

Notice anything wrong? How about the red cement mixer in the back behind the wall I built that has a door too small for the mixer to pass through? I had to saw through the two studs to the right of the pocket door to get the mixer out. The only problem was that John had to take his Sawzall home and I had to make the cuts with a hand saw. Then I had to splice the studs and crossbraces back in place. That didn't take too long so I was also able to put up about 2/3 of the dry wall by about 6 PM. Then a two hour ride home.

So I got a lot done: the tour at Palomar, very rare historical feebies, the first test ride between the two observatories, and more construction work at my observatory.

April 8 + Evening Planets

Last night I did a thirty minute talk at the Newport Beach Back Bay Center as part of three presentations by my club, the Orange County Astronomers. Although my talk, which was simply a display of astronomy images taken by club members was well received, the highlight of the evening as far as I was concerned was going outside after the first talk at about 7:40. The center is on the east side of Newport Bay so we had a great view across the bay of the western sky with just a band of sunset no more than ten degrees above the horizon. Just above this band was Venus, shining very brightly. It will be visible in the evening sky for several months. However, just the width of two fingers to the right and slightly lower was Mercury, which was much fainter - in fact almost 80 times fainter then Venus, and just barely visible to these aging eyes. If you would like to catch a view of Mercury - mostly for bragging rights because its really not that impressive - do it over the next couple of nights because Mercury moves very fast and will be moving apparently closer to the sun very quickly.

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Today was a good day at Anza for me. Leaving home at 6:30 I got there in about 1 3/4 hours and avoided most of the commuter traffic. When I arrived there was another member out there overnight but I didn't see him, just his equipment on his pad and his car. He probably had a good night and slept most of the day in the bunk house.

My goal today was to at least finish the wall we've been working on but first, a picture update from last week. Here is the west footing that we've been working on forever. Half of the wooden mold has been removed. The fact that several inches of the mold are buried at the bottom of the footing in concrete is the main problem. Cutting and removing the mold is backbreaking work.

Here is the observing area, specifically the northwest corner. That is where John will be shortly building his own warm room - probably this coming weekend. He built the roof module at home and trucked it out to the site. It is sitting on top off the main warm room roof.

This is John's temporary pier in the southwest corner of the observing area. He has notched the concrete so that the pier feet can sit in the same place for several months. This will be the location of his permanent pier.

We also removed the old permanent pier since it was inefficiently placed dead center of the observing area. You can see it sitting on the right side in front of the blue tarp. I will be mounting that permanently on my side of the observing area. The wire disaster we found and I described last blog is hidden under the red cone in the center and partially blocked by the ARD (Automatic Rain Deterrent) - or the plain old plastic bucket - over John's pier. Inside the main warm room, we have removed the old fluorescent tube light panels and have replaced them with four of these newer and more efficient panels. John got them for free when renovators at his workplace miscalculated the lighting fixtures and ordered too many. They were going to throw them out when John appropriated them.
Now for today's work. I needed to secure the two interior wall sections to the cinder blocks walls with masonry screws. Then I had to make a brace to span the space for the pocket door kit. Remember that the top sill for each wall section simply butted together. I had to use the brace to splice them together. Then I assembled the pocket door kit - according to the directions which specifically said NOT to remove the small wood spacers that kept the integrity of the door frame during shipment. The problem for me was that I saw two of them - there was a third that I mistook for a strengthening piece. Suffice it to say that later when the kit was assembled, inserted into the space for it in the wall, plumbed and squared, and secured permanently with nails and screws - I realized there was a third spacer that was never mentioned or shown on the directions. This had been causing me problems in truing up the frame that I resolved with several extra houris of unnecessary difficulty. I realized it was a spacer when I removed the two obvious ones and hung the door. When I pushed the door into the frame, the door edge missed being flush with the frame side by about an inch. It should have slid all the way in and hit a rubber bumper on the far inside if the frame. The third spacer was blocking it. Since there were three screws holding the spacer and their heads were now covered by the 2 X 4s of the wall, I had to chisel out the spacer and then cut the protruding screws with a Sawzall. At that point I decided to call it a day. One unexpectedly favorable surprise saved us some work. We had anticipated that we would have to brace the middle of the wall against the rafters to keep it from moving but there is so much strength in the assembly that we can skip that step. Here is a picture of the finally completed wall in the main warm room:

Next week I will try to find a week day to complete the dry wall and start hanging the new ceiling panels. We're hoping to have an estimate on the new roof from Gary by then.

April 4 + Easter Earthquake

Very interesting weekend!



First of all, nobody was injured nor was there any damage from the Easter quake. I'll add more after I update the observatory.



Yesterday both John and I worked at the observatory plus we had a meeting with the club contractor who just completed the other observatories that I've mentioned and shown photos of previously. No pics today - I'll have some next weekend after some more time at the observatory.



We met with Gary, the club contractor, at the observatory yesterday because we are getting a bit tired that our astronomy hobby has been transformed into a building contractor business with the completion seemingly not getting any closer. We are actually almost finished with all but two things: our telescope piers and the roof. We have almost completed all the electrical wiring including the installation of new ceiling lights in the warm room, almost completing the new wall and pocket door. We are half finished with removing the wood molds on our footings that we struggled with over the winter. Unfortunately they will not simply slide up and out of the hole, leaving behind the cement footings. What happened is that wet cement oozed under the forms and encased about three inches of the wood form in concrete. We have had to take a sawzall, squeeze it into the excavated holes, and try to saw thru the forms at an angle. Unexpectedly hard work half done. Then we finally removed the single telescope pier that's in the center of the observing area. I will be re-locating it several feet to one side for my use but we had a surprise, We expected to have one conduit coming up out of the slab to power the telescope. There were three conduits with wires coming out and simply twisted together and a nut slipped over each one - it really should have had a junction box but we finally figured out why three conduits - one came from the main circuit box as expected but the other two conduits run to the two GFI outlets on the outside of the building. Just some more unexpected electrical wring to do.

We met with Gary to see if we can have him help with the roof. After reviewing our autocad drawings and discussing his schedule versus our needs and finances, we will be getting an estimate from him with ten days. He will price it two ways: one - he will complete the entire roof assembly including all of the rail and support work on top of the walls, and two, we will complete the track and support system and Gary will quote only on the roof itself. In both cases, John and I will complete the roof motor mechanism. Hopefully, Gary will be reasonable time-wise (completion by late June) and price-wise (he usually makes nothing on club members and if he under estimates the job, he eats the difference). Meanwhile John and I will continue with the projects we have already initiated, Fortunately, despite the lack of a roof and no permanent piers, the observatory is usable.

You probably have heard about the big quake across the border in Mexico today. Phillis and I were at a friend's house in Huntington Beach sitting down for Easter dinner on his patio when it hit. There were eight of us sitting by the pool when I started to feel a slight side to side motion, minor enough to think it was just my balance. I asked Phil if she felt ti and then it got stronger and everyone felt it. Every quake feels different and this was the most different. It lasted av bout 45 seconds and the motion was a back and forth motion that got fairly strong and then tailed off and then another set of motion with a different period and less strong. When it was over I said it was at least a 7.0 at least a hundred miles away. Just like in the movie "Volcano" - all Californians get into the quick guess before they hear official word. Right now it was a 7.2 almost 140 miles away. This was the first reasonable quake we experienced when it wasn't night and we were outdoors. The pool water sloshed over onto the patio and lost a couple inches of water. It was really cool watching the utility poles swinging back and forth one at a time as each quake wave came thru. I thought the wires were going to snap because they would lose tension and then get very taut every few seconds.

The funny thing was people's reactions. Six of us have felt a number of fairly strong earthquakes so once it was over, talk switched over to talking about past quakes. The two visitors from North Carolina were on the verge of panicking unit they saw how calm we all were. The quake talk went on for about ten minutes and then switched back to other things. When we went inside the TV had a continuous bulletin about the quake but we knew it would be hours before anyone knew anything more than how strong was the quake and where was the epicenter. The visitors were glued to the TV. I was very interested to hear one of the old timers recall when he was ten years old and went thru the Long Beach quake - in 1933!

That's about it until next week.

March 11

Today was a good day at the observatory. As promised some time ago, here are the pics to catch up on the work I've written about. First a pretty picture:This was taken looking west from near where the paved road gives way to the dirt road five miles from the observatory. The snow capped peak is Mt. San Jacinto. Just beyond and 7,000 feet below its peak lies Palm Springs at sea level. People normally see this mountain in the background of the Palm Springs postcards.

Most of the dirt road has been repaired since the last rains two weeks ago except for the final approach to our gate, which actually is considerably worse for some reason.

This rut is almost a foot deep and runs all he way to our gate, splitting along the way. The best way to cross this is to try and pass over it at a 90 degree angle - as long as the sides don't collapse!

Here's an axle buster!

Now for the catch-up pics. Here is the outside view with the new stains and weeping from the rain:

East wall:

South wall:

The walls will have to be power washed again prior to painting in a few weeks.

Here is the new door between the warm room and the observing area:

Its been keeping the rain out of the warm room.

Below is where we replaced the window between the warm room and observing area. This will be covered in a few weeks by the wall from John's warm room.Below is the west footing for the north rail support column, still in its form and not yet back filled:

Below is the warm room as of today. The old ceiling tiles have been removed. The new tiles are in cases on the left. The white squares piled in the back middle are the new lights that will replace the old fluorescent lights. There will still be both white and red lights on different on/off switches. The red lights are used at night to maintain your night vision.
Against the back wall are 4 X 4s of dry wall. I had to cut them down from 4 X 8s in the Lowe's parking lot to get them in my van. I provided some fine amusement for Lowe's customers that day. The new stud wall in the middle was built today. I made it into two separate sections as can be seen by the fact that the top sill are in two pieces. That was for two reasons: 1 - I was here alone today and would not have been able to lift and position a wall of that size myself; 2 - The top sill would have been 12 feet long - too long for my van. I did manage to position the two sections and bolt them to the cement slab floor. The empty center part of the wall is the roughed out area for the pocket door and its frame, both of which are leaning against the right hand wall beyond the new stud wall.

By next week John will have completed most of the new wiring and I will have completed the new wall. John will also start on his warm room in the current observing area. Within the next month my new camera will arrive and I will start the shake down on my new system. That will get me to the point of coming out for a long weekend where I can work on the observatory, take images and photometry at night, and do afternoon tours at Palomar Observatory, only forty minutes away.

Speaking of which, I was at Palomar last weekend and was snowed on for the first time in California. I got a chance to climb inside part of the telescope. To get an idea of what I'm talking about, here is a standard picture of the Hale telescope at Palomar:

Just a quick explanation. The steel truss work pointing to the one o'clock position is actually what you would call the telescope tube. The mirror is almost 16 1/2 feet in diameter. Now look at the solid tube pointing at the 10 o'clock position in the foreground. It is hollow and I was able to climb inside of it last week. Here is my picture just inside the round entry portal:

I think this is enough for today. Since we are starting a new season at Palomar and I'm involved there with researching the observatory history and working on a telescope program in addition to conducting tours, I can provide a lot of interesting behind the scenes stories. Please let me know if you would like me to write about Palomar in addition to my observatory.

March 4

This will be short. If you've had a bad day, read on - you may feel better since I probably had a worse day then you. If you've had a good day, skip this so I don't ruin the rest of your day. Don't worry, I don't have the new pictures I promised in the last post. That will wait till next week.

Today's trip to Anza had been delayed repeatedly over the last two weeks, mostly due to weather. I had the van pretty loaded up for today's trip: 18 2"x4"s, five pieces of 4'X8' sheet rock, a pocket door frame, a pocket door, 3 cases of ceiling tiles, plus all the tools I needed. All of this was to divide the warm room into a control area/TV room and a separate sleeping area and to replace the old ceiling tiles I ripped down ages ago.

I had some trepidation because I heard the dirt road to the site had taken some hits with the last rains. Under normal conditions the van barely has enough clearance; today it was even less with the load I had.

The road was eroded in a few places but had been repaired better than before in others. Despite the improved areas, the normal ten minute dirt road ride took over 30 minutes. Here's a pic of the road with one of the deeper eroded ruts:

The final approach to our site was in the worst shape. Some of those ruts are over a foot deep. The entrance to our site is just past the fence on the right.

The weather had changed quite a bit from the coast - from warm and sunny to cool, cloudy, and damp. A good thing was that even though it had rained quite a bit recently, the warm room was dry as a result of the new door and weep holes we drilled several weeks ago.

I had everything unloaded and in the observatory by 9:30. I should have easily been able to frame out the wall and door, put up the sheet rock, and hung the ceiling tiles by dinner time - not to be. The gods needed to be amused.

I opened up the pocket door kit to start to review the assembly directions. I couldn't find the bag of hardware for the assembly. The packing box had not been tampered with but there was no bag in the van or the observatory. I was stuck before I could do anything. The nearest Lowes was over 35 miles away; the one that I bought it at was over 90. That pretty much killed any hope of construction for the day. I resigned myself to rectifying the problem and trying again next week.

I got home by noon, got my Lowes receipt and headed to the store. The manager became very understanding once everyone in the store could hear of my problem and the wasted day. He reimbursed me $50 of the $60 cost of the door. So I made $50 for half a day's work minus the gas.

I'll try again next week and will hopefully have a happier story to tell.

February 12 - 15

I was going to wait on this entry until tomorrow. I had no camera with me during the time last week listed above so I was hoping to get out to Anza tomorrow and catch up on the photos but that's not to be. Due to family obligations and the predicted rainy weather over the next five days, I won't be out there until the middle of next week. So, here's a recap of last weekend but minus the pictures. I promise to include them on the next post.

We had almost five inches of rain at Anza since my last post. Prior to last weekend we were told by other club members that there was damage to the five mile dirt road to the site and water in the observatory. When we got there it was worse than we expected.

First of all, the road was almost impassable with my Honda Accord. The road is dirt and what is typically called a washboard road. It has many parallel small ridges (an inch or two high) across the road. In my case, driving at 35 mph cancels out the vibration from the washboard. More than 5 mph below or above 35 causes severe vibrations. This time the problem wasn't the washboard road - it was the gullies eroded across the road in random fashion. They were typically about 5 or 6 inches across and up to 2 feet deep. I had to thread my way through a maze of them for most of the way - this part of the drive normally takes 10 minutes; this time it was almost 35 minutes. Slow driving as well as a lot of vibration because of the very slow speed.

Once we got to the observatory we knew that the weekend's work of rewiring the building was out. The outside of the building was a disappointment. Last fall I power washed the outside walls to get rid of the white calcium salts that bled through the cinder block; with the rain, the stains are back and I will have to power wash it again before we paint it when the weather gets warmer.

There were a couple of good things. The wall section replacement for the warm room window that I installed before the rains did not leak and held up well. Also, I did some excavating over the last few months on the top of the slope on the north side of the observatory. I built a berm with the soil removed from the post holes and also dug a trench behind it to draw rain water off to the west around the observatory. That worked very well also.

Remember that the observing area roof is not there yet. Not having a roof can cause problems with rain getting in - duh! What happened was that the rain that fell in the observing area ran down the stairs, through the old warped wooden door and into the warm room. Once the water got into the warm room, it drained only slowly out beneath the outside door. When we got there the floor was wet but not flooded. Fortunately, we had anticipated the possibility of flooding so everything was up on blocks but we still lost some bags of Quikrete - the water must have maxed out at about 5 inches deep. However, the place was like a hothouse - it must have been 100% humidity. The walls were dripping wet and the hanging ceiling panels were soggy and drooping. We always wondered why the ceiling tiles drooped because the roof above the warm room has never leaked. Now we know.

We set a fan blowing on exhaust in the door to clear out the humidity while John and I sat down and strategized about what to do. Obviously, the rewiring work we had planned was down the drain for the time being. The issue was that the new roll-off observing room roof was not going to be on for another several months at least and our rainy season still has a couple of months to go. We needed to find a way to keep the warm room from flooding because that's where most of our immediate work is planned. We were also limited in our choices by whatever materials we currently had on site.

We decided to prevent the warm room from flooding again. First of all we drilled some weep holes in the observing area at the slab level so much of the rain water would go through the walls instead of down the stairs. Then we drilled some additional weep holes at the bottom of the stairs so that whatever water did come down the stairs would drain out that way. The water barrier between the stairs and the warm room is what we spent the rest of the day working on - a brand new external door to replace the warped fiber board inside door that had been there for twenty years.

We needed to rip out the entire frame around the door because the wood was warped and rotten and the door would not close. We built a new door way and fitted the new frame in. We made a perfect fit and the door opened and closed perfectly. We caulked around the door frame especially on the floor and under the new sill. To test the barrier, we poured a couple of buckets of water down the stairs and it flowed out the weep holes and nothing came in under the door. As long as the water by the stairs doesn't top the sill at about an inch we should be okay. I spent some time ripping down all of the old ceiling tiles so John had easy access to the overhead wiring for Sunday. He also set up a temporary telescope pier where his permanent one will be so he can start using the observatory. I'll be setting up within the next month or two.

By the end of the next day, the warm room was pretty dry and John was able to complete about 75% of the rewiring job. He actually had a rough time at Anza those three days. The site well pump died on Thursday and we were without water the entire time.

Next week I will be building a wall with a pocket door across the warm room. One room will be for sleeping and have a desk; the other will have my control area and room for a flat screen TV and coffee nook. John will begin the construction of his personal warm room in the observing area. The only major construction remaining at after that is pouring our two permanent telescope pier footings and building the roll-off roof - probably the two biggest projects.

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.