Nilknarf

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solar telescope with Callie being suspicious...

It’s been a nice day all ’round… beautiful weather, beautiful woman, wonderful life….

Got up early, around 09:30 & started getting stuff done.

One of my major projects was to work on the solar projector, and it’s done (I have photographic evidence!) except for the black plastic that I’ll wrap it in. The plastic will be duct-taped to the frame & wrapped around it.

It’s a pretty flimsy structure, and will most likely behave like a kite if the wind is blowing.

I took it out in the sun and the sun was dime-sized on the projected end…. I drilled the pinhole with the smallest bit that I had, but I might wind up making another one with an actual pin.

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I went to the hardware store twice to get the connections made… first I cut the heads off of several bolts and realized that that wasn’t working. and was rather dangerous… my first inclination was to grind the heads off, but that was taking a long, long time.

I do have future plans for a better method, using mirrors, similar to a real telescope, and something that is much smaller. I didn’t have any idea of how big the projected image was going to be, and I had some 14X17 inch material, which was very much overkill.

But you don’t go to an eclipse with the equipment that you want, you go with what you have….

We went to eat rather early, went to McGueys Mexican place, good food but poor service this time, don’t know why, really. We were the only customers in there….

After we got done eating we went to Jacksons’ greenhouse, where Jean got another dianthis and some creeping phlox.
When we got home, I took some flower & plant pictures.

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“George Bush says he speaks to god every day, and christians love him for it. If George Bush said he spoke to god through his hair dryer, they would think he was mad. I fail to see how the addition of a hair dryer makes it any more absurd.“ – anon

Thanx for being here… all these years!!!!

All material © 1963-2012 by Douglas C. Franklin