Sticker Shock

I received quite a shock in the mail a couple of weeks ago. It was my insurance renewal notice for our Jeep Compass. The rate for the same coverage on a car that’s a year older and depreciating was more than double – that’s right, my premium was more than double the cost of the previous year.

I talked to my insurance agent about this and she had some shocking stories to tell. The insurance market is in turmoil. She’s been in the business for over 30 years and she’s never experienced a market like the current conditions. She says a number of factors are involved – I think many of these factors were avoidable.

She cited California and New York as major influences in the cost of insurance. California has had huge claims from wildfires and they regulate the cost of insurance. Many companies have quit writing new policies or renewals in California and New York due to over-regulation. When the government doesn’t allow a free market, unintended consequences can rule. Companies leaving the huge California and New York markets has a ripple effect on the rest of us.

Companies that continue to operate in California and New York have to underwrite policies for less than their actuaries calculate. They spread that loss to others – in this case, my current insurance through Progressive raises the cost for everyone else to cover their losses in states like California and New York. In essence, I’m subsidizing California policies.

Another factor we face in Arizona is the double-edged sword of under-insured/uninsured policy requirements. Under-insured/uninsured coverage is a state requirement here. Many of the collision claims here involve uninsured motorists. The flood of illegal immigration puts many unlicensed, uninsured motorists on the road. So, the state requires me to have insurance coverage to account for that. Again, I’m forced to subsidize their lack of responsibility. If your policy is due for renewal soon, be prepared for a cost increase. End of rant.

Awhile back, Donna and I decided to buy whole chickens which I then broke down into eight or 10 pieces. We liked the quality of whole chickens better than the pre-packaged breasts we found in stores. I would break down the chicken and Donna would vacuum seal pieces and freeze them for later consumption. Somehow, over the last year or so we got out of that habit. It bit us when Donna made a dish with pre-packaged chicken breasts that turned out to be dry and stringy. It had nothing to do with her recipe or cooking skill – it was not a good quality product.

So I’m back into the chicken butchery business. I break down a chicken into two breasts and tenders, two thighs, two drumsticks and two wings which I sometimes cut into four pieces. We rediscovered why we were doing this in the past.

To break down the chicken, I use a Japanese knife called a honesuki which is designed precisely for this task. A honesuki was one of the first Japanese knives I bought. I’ve never liked the Misono brand Swedish steel honesuki I bought all that much. It was made in the traditional Japanese way with the blade sharpened to an offset bevel – in this case a 70/30 grind. I couldn’t keep a sharp edge on it and struggled to maintain the 70/30 edge.

I found a good deal on a honesuki made in Sanjo, Japan with a western 50/50 bevel grind. I like Sanjo knives in general. Sanjo is a historic blade- and tool-making district. Many of the bladesmiths there are small operators with one man doing the entire knifemaking process. There is a factory there called Tadafusa which employs a number of blacksmiths and sharpeners, but most of the knife makers there are run by only a few employees or a single person. The honesuki I bought is typical san-mai (literally translates as three-layer) construction where the hard shirogami #2 carbon steel core is sandwiched between layers of softer stainless steel. I broke down two chickens with this blade and it glided right through all of the joints to separate the chicken parts. Love it!

Honesuki knife from Sanjo, Japan

Most of the meal prep work I do for Donna involves cutting vegetables. I bought another Japanese knife from Teruyasu Fujiwara called a nakiri. Nakiris are typically made with a rectangular blade and have a slight belly curvature. They are specifically designed for cutting vegetables and the flat edge profile makes it cut cleanly through a vegetable without leaving what’s called an accordion – that’s when the vegetable isn’t fully separated and the bottom layer of the vegetable stays connected together. It’s annoying.

TF nashiji nakiri – vegetable knife

I keep our kitchen knives sharp by free-hand sharpening on Japanese water stones. These are whetstones that either need to be soaked in water before use or in some case can be used with just a splash of water to lubricate and clean the surface. I have a number of synthetic stones in various grits for this task.

Traditional Japanese stones were mined for centuries and are natural stones. This can lead to another rabbit hole where there are enthusiasts looking for stones with seemingly magical properties. This can lead to an expensive journey through stones which can be collectable as many of the old mines have been shut down for years. Enthusiasts sometimes spend hundreds of dollars for a single stone!

Recently I’ve been hearing about natural stones being mined in Indonesia. There are a couple of groups there trying to open up an export market for these sharpening stones. I watch a couple of YouTube videos describing them. I fell for it and bought an Indonesian natural whetstone. It was inexpensive – they haven’t developed much of a following or market yet, so they are dirt cheap. The stone I bought is hard and fairly fine grain. I used it to finish the edge on my honesuki and also on a Sanjo slicer (called a sujihiki). It left a razor-sharp edge.

Indonesian whetstone in stone holder

You can see this thing is a brick – I think it’s a lifetime whetstone.

I put my knives to good use recently and made my famous Japanese fried rice.

Vegetable prep for Japanese fried rice

Donna grilled shrimp and served it over a cup of fried rice.

Grilled shrimp over fried rice

Another recent meal was pork tenderloin served with chipotle maple sauce with garlic smashed potato and fresh broccoli from our garden on the side. That’s a winner!

Choptle maple pork tenderloin

Another fine dinner was a plate of skillet chicken parmesan served with gnocci and steamed spinach and fresh basil from our garden.

Skillet chicken parmesan

Last night, we had our friends, Chuck and Sue Lines and Dick and Roxy Zarowny over for Donna’s annual St. Patrick’s dinner. We had it a few days early as Donna has a Viewpoint Concert Band performance on Sunday evening. She made all the traditional Irish foods – corned beef, cabbage and carrots, champ potatoes and Irish soda bread. Sue brought an appetizer and Roxy supplied Key lime pie for dessert. I neglected to take any photos as we chatted all evening.

There’s a big project underway here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. A company called Airebeam has been contracted to install fiber-optic cabling and internet service for the park. In a couple of months we should have access to blazing fast (up to 750Mbps) internet and video streaming – it will be great!

Donna competed in a tennis tournament a couple of weeks ago. I attended as an official scorekeeper – I’m a league scorekeeper for the East Valley Senior Tennis League. The league sanctions competition for seniors from various 55+ parks and neighborhoods in our area. Donna and her tennis partner, Linda Rice, won their first match but were eliminated in a close second-round match two days later.

The weather has been very pleasant over the past couple of weeks with daily highs in the mid-to-upper 70s. We had clouds roll in last night and will have some rain today before the sunshine returns again tomorrow. The rest of the month is forecast to have daily highs back in the mid-to-upper 70s.

Hearts and Roses

It’s been more than a minute since I last posted – in fact, it’s been about six weeks! It was easier to find topics of interest when we were on the road full-time. New surroundings, projects galore to keep everything functional on the RV – always something to talk about. Not that life here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort is boring – there’s always something going on. But it gets redundant to post about daily life without fresh topics.

This week we had Valentines Day. I don’t get charged up about Hallmark holidays. Maybe I’m just not a romantic type, but I really don’t get it. When we lived in Michigan they also celebrated something called “Sweetest Day.” I think it’s common in the Midwest. To me, it’s another Hallmark holiday made up to sell cards and candies. Bah humbug!

Last year after I started my deep dive into astrophotography, I imaged the Rosette Nebula. I counted it as one of my more successful attempts. I only had 71 minutes of data and the image was quite noisy. I knew I could improve it, but didn’t have a chance to capture it again until this week. I went out on Tuesday and Wednesday night and set up at the East tennis court parking lot.

Tuesday night things went well – until they didn’t. After about 40 one-minute exposures, I had a data transfer failure from the ZWO ASI533 MC Pro camera to the NINA software on my laptop. After a few frantic moments of troubleshooting, I disconnected the camera and restarted it. I was up and running again. It seems I always have moment of drama when I’m imaging the night sky. Things ran smoothly after that. The quality of the exposures seemed good.

Wednesday night was the smoothest session I’ve ever experienced. Everything worked as it should, the mount tracked flawlessly and quality of my captures was better than ever. Altogether over the two sessions I had 221 one-minute exposures. During processing of these sub-exposures, I culled eight substandard captures, leaving 213. That’s a 96% keeper rate. Outstanding! I’ve also improved my image processing. Once I stacked the 213 sub-exposures and made corrections, the final image was very satisfying. The improvement over my early effort 11 months ago is pretty dramatic in my opinion.

The total integration time of three hours and 33 minutes reduced the background noise and also improved the detail and color of the nebula. Here is the latest image.

NGC 2244 Rosette Nebula

This is what I came up with 11 months ago.

These images were shot with the same camera, filter and software. The telescope in the old photo was a William Optics Zenithstar 73 – a fine doublet telescope. I replaced the Z73 with a William Optics Gran Turismo 71 and used a 0.8X reducer. The GT71 is a triplet and an upgrade over the Z73, but I think that had little to do with the overall results. I also used the Losmandy GM 811G mount vs the Skywatcher HEQ5 I used to have. The stars are tighter in the latest photo – that may be due to me focusing more carefully than when I first started. The background is much smoother – it doesn’t have the gritty noise of the earlier photo. This is mostly due to the longer integration time – three and half hours vs 71 minutes. The other wildcard is atmospheric conditions – I have no control over that other than to pass on nights when conditions are really poor.

Donna is off to band rehearsal this morning. The Viewpoint Concert Band has a performance scheduled for tomorrow night. This will be the third of four concerts scheduled this season. Donna is the president of the Viewpoint Concert Band board of directors. She’s also the secretary of the Viewpoint Tennis Club and she’s the founder and heads up the Viewpoint Good Neighbors program. In her spare time, she golfs in the ladies golf league and tries to get on the golf course a couple of times per week. To say she’s always on the run is an understatement.

I almost forgot about another nebula image I captured at the end of January. This is the Heart Nebula captured with my GT71 and Player One Poseidon C-Pro camera. This was captured with 104 90-second sub-exposures for a total time of two hours and 34 minutes. The atmosperic conditions were less than favorable with the moon at 84% illumination.

Heart Nebula

Donna just pointed out that while I am not a fan of Hallmark holidays, I did choose appropriate targets for Valentine’s Day – a rosette and a heart!

After a wet and relatively cold start to February, we have great weather forecast to continue through the end of the month. Today we should hit the mid-70s and the thermometer will top out there daily with mostly sunny skies. Can’t complain about that! Donna will miss some of our good weather to go to equally good weather in Florida. She’s meeting two sisters and a cousin and they’re doing a half marathon in Key West, Florida next weekend.

Edit: If you click on the Rosette Nebula photos, they will open in a new pane. Then click on the photo again and it will expand. This will allow you to easily see the quality differences I mention.

Gucci USB

Happy New Year, first of all. I hope you all had an enjoyable holiday season and a merry Christmas. We certainly enjoyed Thanksgiving and Christmas. Donna’s Good Neighbor group shared holiday meals with many older residents of Viewpoint that were homebound or alone over the holidays.

We’re staying busy as usual and settling into our winter routines. Of course, Donna is involved with many more activities than I am – she’s always on the go. I’m running pickleball coaching sessions once a week and taking tennis lessons two days a week. Something that has become a habit is Friday afternoon/evening visits to RJs cigar lounge with Mike Hall. We catch up on events and solve world issues. Sometimes Mike’s wife, Jodi, and Donna join us. I usually puff a premium cigar with rum on the rocks.

Donna has been after me for a while to do something about hearing impairment. I have hearing loss – it’s no wonder really. A lifetime around shop machinery, playing electric guitars, racing motorcycles and shooting guns takes a toll. For some reason, I’ve resisted checking out hearing aids. Since hearing aids were approved for over-the-counter, prices have dropped dramatically.

I did some online research and found that traditional hearing centers convince patients that their services are required and they offer expert advice at no cost. In reality, they bake the cost of their enterprise – building rent, employment expense, etc. – into the price of the hearing aids. Nowadays, hearing tests can be done online with decent headphones. Test results can be analyzed and hearing aids with custom correction profiles can be ordered and shipped to your home.

I chose a company called Jabra – they’re part of the GN Hearing group. They’re headquartered in Denmark. I took the test on their site and submitted my results. I ordered a pair of their Enhance Select 100 hearing aids for $1699. I also downloaded an app for my Samsung Galaxy that connects via Bluetooth to my hearing aids – I can adjust them for different surroundings and scenarios on the fly with my phone.

I can hear so much more now. I love them and wish I would have done this earlier. If you are interested in their products, I have a link to a discount for referrals. I have an online Zoom appointment with a Jabra specialist on the 11th to go over any questions that may have come to mind after using them for a while. They can also customize the settings if I wish to modify it. The purchase price included three years of warranty and support.

When I go to the Cigar Lounge, I change the hearing aid setting to “Restaurant.” This makes nearby conversation easy to hear while muffling background noise and conversation. On the tennis or pickleball courts I switch it to “Outdoors.” This blocks wind noise and muffles loud sounds. Pretty convenient.

I’ve been putting time into astrophotography – nothing new there. It takes about five hours for a two-and-a-half-hour imaging session when you consider set-up, calibration and tear-down. In October, I imaged M31 – the Andromeda Galaxy. This galaxy has been a nemesis. I’ve had a hard time getting enough usable data to process a good picture. It seems like Murphy’s Law strikes every time I go for this target. One night I had good conditions and set everything up only to have communication failures between my gear and laptop. After two hours, I gave up. I ordered some replacement cables. Then I had to wait for another clear night with good seeing conditions. It finally came about and I captured about two and a half hours of 60-second exposures on December 14th.

A week went by before I had good astrophotography conditions again and I set up at the east tennis court parking lot here at Viewpoint. I captured another three hours. After culling out bad frames, I stacked and integrated 297 frames for four hours and 57 minutes of data. I’m fairly happy with the result and I can give Andromeda a break for a while. Maybe next year I’ll see if I can improve it as my skills increase with more experience.

M31 – the Andromeda Galaxy

The Andromeda Galaxy is about 2.5 million light years away from Earth. I used my new William Optics GT71 telescope with a 0.8 reducer/flattener and Player One Poseidon cooled astrophotography camera. I used an Optolong L-Pro filter to fight the light pollution and moonglow.

Next, I wanted to capture something new. After looking at the best possibilities, I settled on NGC 281 – the Pacman Nebula. I chose it because it would be high in the sky from 7pm to 10pm. Telescopes work best on objects that are near the zenith – that is, overhead. That’s because when the objects are nearly straight up, there’s less atmosphere to penetrate. If we shoot at a low angle, we have to deal with much more atmospheric disturbance.

Once again, I set up and ran through calibration only to find communication errors. Data wouldn’t transfer from my camera to my laptop. After much wrangling, I isolated the problem to the USB hub. Most modern laptops only have one or two USB-A type ports. I need a minimum of four, so I use a hub for more ports. I was kicking myself when I realized the hub was the problem. I had all this software and equipment and I link it through a $20 hub from Amazon. Not smart.

The demands of an imaging camera and a guidescope camera along with mount guiding commands and so on put a lot strain on the hub’s ability to quickly distribute and transfer data. I did some research and found that most guys are using independently powered USB hubs – they don’t pull any voltage through the laptop USB port. That way constant voltage is supplied through a separate connection and the laptop port only handles data. I found a number of complaints about cheap hubs not working when it gets colder outside. This makes sense if you consider they are designed to work in your home or office where the temperature is fairly constant and only ranges from maybe 60 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

I decided to bite the bullet and get a good hub. I ordered a Pegasus USB hub that is considered industrial grade. It has a certified working temperature range of -40 to +185 degrees Fahrenheit. It took a bite out of my wallet at $200 versus the Amazon $20 hub, but I’m confident this one will work. Actually, I hedged my bet – I also ordered an Amazon $40 powered USB hub for back-up purposes. There’s no worse feeling than to set all of the gear up for a night of imaging, only to fail to even get started because of equipment failure – especially something as simple as a USB connection.

Once I had the new hub – which my friend Mike Hall calls the “Gucci” hub – I had wait out the weather. I finally had a promising night on December 30th. I set up at the east tennis courts and everything calibrated fine. There was a full moon, but as it was rising in the east, I was shooting almost straight up slightly facing the northwest.

This turned out to be the first time I experienced what appeared to be clear skies, but with so much atmospheric turbulence that I struggled to get usable images. After an hour and half or so, things seems to settle down and the session improved. I knew I didn’t have enough to create a decent final image though.

The next clear night was January 2nd. This turned out to be excellent seeing conditions and I captured more than two and half hours of 75-second exposures. The moon didn’t rise until about 9pm so I had good skies most of the night, light pollution notwithstanding.

I had to throw out about half of my first night’s effort, but kept nearly all of the second night – I think I only culled three or four frames out of 125. I had three hours and 52 minutes total integration time. The Pacman Nebula is in the constellation Cassiopeia, about 9,500 light years away from earth. If you remember the video game Pacman from the early 80s, the nebula resembles the Pacman about to gobble up some stars.

NGC 281 – the Pacman Nebula

I captured this image with my AT115 EDT telescope and ZWO ASI533MC Pro cooled astrophotography camera. The light pollution and moonglow made it difficult to capture much of the oxygen gases that emit blue light, but I’m happy with the final result.

Donna got an air fryer and has been experimenting with it. It’s a story in itself, how she acquired the air fryer through a generous gift but then traded with a friend for a smaller air fryer. The original air fryer was too large for our small kitchen and storage space. Her friend Deborah had a new smaller one and was interested in a larger one, so they swapped.

One of the meals she made was air-fried tilapia. A simple meal ideal for the fryer.

Best wishes for 2024 – another trip around the sun.

Good Neighbors

I posted less than a month ago, but it feels like a long time ago. I guess that’s because we had an eventful November. Most of it good with a couple of exceptions.

Donna started a group here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort over the summer and things got into full swing in the last month or so. It’s called Viewpoint Good Neighbors. She organized a group of volunteers to help some of the elderly residents of Viewpoint. They can provide companionship, help with household chores and also provide meals for people that are mostly alone and/or homebound. She has over 40 volunteers in the group and she’s kept very busy as residents reach out to her and she finds volunteers to accommodate them.

She also has band practice with the Viewpoint Concert Band and she’s a board member of the band. As they gear up for another season, she’s been busy with meetings and planning. On top of that, she’s on the Viewpoint Tennis Club Executive Committee. Whew!

I’ve been taking tennis lessons twice a week and also getting out to practice a bit – so I’m on the courts three times a week usually. I haven’t had much time for pickleball – the lower courts are still closed for refinishing and the upper courts attract a crowd. I’ll be starting my pickleball coaching sessions soon – I think.

Of course, Thanksgiving was a busy week. Donna had several meal deliveries and various assignments for the Good Neighbors. They provided relief for many of the elderly people with no local family and she can be proud of what they accomplished. We enjoyed the dinner Donna prepared – she bought a brined turkey breast from Winco. It was actually a whole turkey minus the wings and legs – I mean a full bone-in breast and back. She stuffed it and served a traditional style meal with sliced turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy with sides of roasted brussel sprouts and butternut squash. She fixed plates for our neighbors and a 94-year old man that was alone at home.

Last week, I found a whole USDA Prime beef tenderloin – about five pounds of super-tender beef. I trimmed it and cut it into filet mignon steaks. Donna vacuum sealed and froze seven or eight steaks plus some tips from the trimming that she will turn into steak bites – yum. I grilled two filets for dinner last Wednesday and they were outstanding. Donna added sauteed mushrooms and onions along with broccoli and baked potatoes on the side.

Now, for the not-so-good stuff. First, I had some sensitivity in one of my teeth and chewing was sometimes painful. It was a lower molar on my right jaw (tooth number 30). I went to the dentist and he scheduled me for a root canal. Ugh! We got it done along with a new ceramic crown replacing the old gold onlay. But I wasn’t finished with the dentist.

Two nights later, I got up in the night to use the bathroom. I’m usually careful about standing up too quickly after I’ve been down for a while – sometimes my blood pressure drops and I can get dizzy. I had a painful episode of this a while back when we were in Cortez, Colorado. This time I must have stood up straight away and took a few steps into the bathroom. The next thing I knew Donna was helping me up as I spit blood and pieces of my teeth into the bath tub. I had a syncope episode – that is, I briefly fainted and fell into the shower tub unconscious.

I was disoriented and had four front teeth broken, rib pain and a bloody lip. I also hit my forehead and had a concussion. Donna was worried most about that and called 911. I was transported to Banner Baywood Hospital for tests. After four hours or so, they sent me home. They didn’t find any conclusive abnormalities and the dental damage was the worst of it. I went back to the dentist the next day and they had to extract what was left of one tooth and make a temporary bridge and crown. I’ll finish the dental work in February.

Meanwhile, Donna had a veneer come off one of her front teeth. She then had a temporary that kept falling off, but she has the permanent veneer in place now and is good to go. So much for the dental stories.

I finally had a chance to take out my William Optics GT71 telescope last Saturday night. The moon was rising late and the forecast called for clear skies. The “seeing” forecast wasn’t the greatest and some atmospheric disturbance was predicted.

I had a few challenges – astrophotography isn’t easy and I often remind myself of that. Figuring out my issues took some time and I started imaging later than I planned. Then I had some high, thin clouds that ended my session. I made a major blunder – I had my software set up for the Player One astro camera, but I was using my ZWO ASI533MC astro camera. By the time I realized this, it was too late to make any changes. This resulted in a noisier image than what I should have captured, but it’s okay. I need to get out again and add more data to get a really good image anyway.

I shot 130 captures of 60 seconds each. I had to cull some of them for various quality reasons and ended up with 102 minutes of integrated data of the Pleiades star cluster. Pleiades is an interesting target. It’s called various names – Pleiades, Seven Sisters, Subaru. The name Pleiades comes from ancient Greek mythology. The star cluster has nine named stars though – the seven sisters are Sterope, Merope, Electra, Maya, Taygeta, Celeano and Alcyone. The other two stars are named after their mythological parents, Atlas and Pleione.

Pleiades – the Seven Sisters

I’m pretty happy with the color in the image – the William Optics GT71 triplet has great color rendition. The bluish nebulosity seen in the photo are from the stars shining through space dust. Pleiades is the closest star cluster at a distance of about 440 light years from earth. I captured this photo from our light polluted neighborhood in Mesa, Arizona. Pleiades was the first deep-sky object I imaged, although I did that from the darker sky found at Weaver Needle Viewpoint. From there you can easily see Pleiades with the naked eye. In cities, it’s very hard to see. With more time on target, I should capture a larger field of nebulosity.

As usual, I’ll close with a couple of Donn’a dinner plates. First we have grilled salmon and bok choy over vegetable fried rice.

Next up was a real winner – Alaskan pollock gratin with green beans.

We had a little rain Thursday night and Friday morning, but the sun was out by noon. It has been colder than usual with highs around 60 in the last few days, but 80 degree temperature should return by tomorrow.

Doublets and Triplets

We’ve turned the corner and finally see a change in season. This is true regarding the weather as well as the occupancy here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. The last time the thermometer hit 100 degrees was October 21st – we haven’t been in the 90s since the 22nd of October. Daily highs range from the low to mid 80s.

The seasonal visitors (Snowbirds) from the north have arrived and the park is nearly full. This is really evident on the pickleball courts and the golf course. I haven’t started my pickleball coaching sessions for this winter yet, the pickleball courts will close for resurfacing next week. Unfortunately, the summer temperatures are too high for the surface to cure properly, so they’ll be doing the work now while demand for courts is high.

Donna convinced me to take up tennis. I started beginner tennis lessons last week and I’m hooked already. I’ve long been a fan of professional tennis and have been watching all of the major professional tournaments on TV since the days of Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg – that’s a long time ago! It’s not an easy game to learn, but I think taking lessons and getting my form and technique right from the start is the way to go. We have nine tennis courts here at Viewpoint and the tennis club is very active and well organized.

Donna is now playing tennis at the 3.0 level and plays in league tournaments. The league tournaments are played against teams from other parks in the area such as Leisure World and Mesa Regal. She’s playing really well and having a lot of fun.

Learning a new sport at the age of 67 is challenging. Pickleball skills don’t really transfer to tennis – it’s a new ball game for me. I’m looking forward to learning and with any luck I’ll be playing recreational tennis with the club within a few months.

I haven’t been out for any astrophotography sessions since I captured the Eastern Veil – see my last post. I avoided the full moon period and we had a few nights with high, thin clouds. I picked up a new telescope though. Telescopes, refractors to be more precise, come in a few flavors and design choices affect how suitable they are for certain tasks.

For astrophotography, these choices can be critical, as photos will show aberrations that we may not notice so much when observing through an eyepiece. One of the first considerations is the type of optical glass used – this can have a huge effect on the amount of apparent chromatic aberration (false color). There are trade-offs as each choice is a compromise. Most astronomers agree that a lens ground from fluorite crystal is the best. But it is very difficult to work with and very expensive.

A few companies have developed synthetic crystals that can rival natural flourite. The most popular is made by Ohara – a Japanese company – and it’s called FPL53. There are a few others, but FPL53 is the benchmark. They make another optical glass that’s slightly inferior when tested for chromatic aberration called FPL51. This glass is lower priced than FPL53 and relatively easy to grind and figure.

The two most popular designs for refractor telescopes are called doublets and triplets. As the name implies, a doublet had a lens cell utilizing two elements. To make a high-quality doublet, you must start with high-quality lens material to combat chromatic aberration and very precise grinding and figuring to reduce any spherical aberration.

The triplet has a lens cell with three elements. By grinding and figuring three lens, the optician has more design freedom on how the elements will interact and these designs are inherently superior to doublets. However, they are more costly and also heavier. Some great telescope designers and manufacturers such as Roland Christen of Astro-Physics claim they can make a doublet that equals a triplet in image quality, however it is more difficult and time consuming to achieve this.

I’ve explained all that to give some background on my new telescope. My first refractor was a William Optics ZenithStar 73III – a doublet made with excellent FPL53 glass. I loved that telescope and I started my astrophotography journey with it. WIlliam Optics has a great reputation for quality and customer service. Last month, I saw a special offer from Agena Astro – my go-to online retailer for all things astronomy-wise.

They offered the William Optics Grand Turismo 71 with a 0.8X reducer/field flattener and a William Optics guidescope for an unbelievable package price. The GT71 is similar to my Z73, but it’s a triplet made with FPL53 and people rave about it. I placed the order and listed my Z73 for sale. I sold the Z73 within a week and parlayed the cash into the GT71. I haven’t used it yet, but I know it’ll be great.

Externally the Z73 and GT71 look very similar. But, we know the triplet with FPL53 should handily outperform a doublet with the same material. The field flattener converts a telescope into an astrograph suitable for astrophotography. Without it, the image would have something known as field curvature which distorts the outer edges and corners of the image – stars would look like footballs or pear-shaped for example.

William Optics Gran Turismo 71 – 0.8X reducer/flattener mounted on the end of the scope

My Z73 had a 1.0X field flattener, meaning it corrected field curvature without changing any other aspect of the scope. My new GT71 has a 0.8X reducer/flattener. This not only corrects the field curvature, but through the magic of optical design, it reduces the effective focal length and changes the focal ratio – you end up with a wider field of view and a faster scope – a faster scope collects light more quickly than a slower scope and can capture images in less time. All three of my telescopes are equipped with field flatteners – a 1.0X on the APM 140 and a 0.8X on the AT 115EDT. I also have a 1.0X for the AT 115EDT.

I’m planning to try a capture of Jupiter tonight. I have to reconfigure the APM 140 for planetary work. I haven’t shot a planetary or lunar image in nearly a year. I have to wrap my head around the different requirements and software for this – it’s much different than capturing a Deep Sky Object.

My legs are a little sore and fatigued this morning. Not only did I have tennis lessons on Wednesday and Friday, on Thursday Donna and I practiced on the tennis court for an hour and Friday morning I spent an hour hiking through the riparian preserve.

As we head toward winter, more migratory birds are in the area. I also found many more people at the riparian preserve than a couple of months ago when it was still hot outside.

I shot a few bird images – that was the reason for hiking through the riparian preserve.

Black-crowned Night Heron – I like how the out-of-focus leaves in the foreground create a natural vignette
American White Pelican
Mockingbird
Bendire’s Thrasher

Last week I found USDA Prime tri-tip at Costco. Tri-tip is one of my favorite cuts of beef – I wrote about it here and here. I smoked it on the Traeger and Donna served it with jalapeno corn bread (made with jalapenos from her garden), green beans and sweet potato pierogies. Delicious!

Tri-tip dinner plate

As I mentioned, we’ve reached the time of year when cooler weather prevails. The forecast for the next couple of weeks calls for highs in the mid-70s to mid-80s with a chance of rain late next week. By the end of the month, we may have highs in the upper 60s – chilly by Valley of the Sun standards.

Cigars and Stars

Another month has flown by – we’re only a week away from Halloween! October began with Donna taking a trip to Bennington, Vermont to visit her parents. I drove Donna to the airport in the early morning of Tuesday, October 3rd. I had time after dropping her off for a quick breakfast and coffee before sunrise. Then I packed my photography gear and headed over to the Riparian Preserve in Gilbert. The first hour or so after sunrise usually has great light for photography.

I shot a few bird photos that I thought were nice. This hummingbird is puffed up, warming herself in the sunrise.

Female hummingbird

I shot a sequence of a snowy egret skimming the water and capturing a fish for breakfast.

The third photo of the sequence above shows the nice early morning light on the back of the egret’s wings. I also captured an image of cormorants in flight.

The cormorants are flying toward the sunrise and the light on their underside is very nice.

The glassy water reflects the image of these black-neck stilts.

Black-neck stilts

I also liked the simple composition of this black phoebe photo.

Black phoebe

Friday, October 6th was my birthday. Donna was away, but she left me a card with a gift certificate for RJ’s Cigars. This was just right as I planned to go to RJ’s Cigar Lounge and enjoy a top-shelf cigar for my birthday. I also want to give a shout out and thank you to long-time blog follower, Miriam Armbrester. Miriam sent me a birthday card. I really appreciate the fact that she took the time to select a card and send it to me in the mail. We met Miriam and her husband, Rand, when we were in Alabama in 2018. They treated us to lunch at the oldest restaurant in Alabama – I wrote about it here.

Donna came back from Vermont on Sunday, October 8th. During the month of October and into November, many of the winter snowbirds return to Viewpoint. Residents of the northern states and Canada return as the weather here cools and becomes downright cold in the areas they summer in. We’ve had slightly cooler weather with a few exceptions where we had very warm afternoons. The evenings are pleasant and overnights are much cooler now.

My last attempt at astrophotography was on our trip to our housesit in Cortez, Colorado. I was foiled by clouds there. The summer months of July through September were too hot here for astrophotography. Here’s the thing – I use dedicated astrophotogrphy cameras for deep sky objects. These cameras have electronically cooled sensors to capture the image.

Deep sky objects are so dim and so far away that long exposure times are necessary. If the image sensor gets too hot, it creates noise – that is, random pixels will glow in uncontrolled ways, making the image appear grainy and lack clarity. For deep sky photography, I like to maintain the sensor temperature at zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit). My best camera is able to cool the sensor 35 degrees Celsius below the ambient temperature – others are capable of cooling 30 degrees Celsius below ambient.

In the summer here, it’s not uncommon for the ambient temperature to remain above 90 degrees (about 30 degrees Celsius) well after dark. This would mean my camera’s cooling system would have to run at 100% output continuously to try and cool the sensor enough. I don’t like to run it above 50% and once cool, it should maintain the temperature with about 25% output. Thus, I give up astrophotography here in the summer. I could photograph planets or the moon. These are such bright objects, they can be captured with very short exposures and do not need cooling. But I find it hard to motivate myself to set up my gear when it’s hot outside and doesn’t get dark until after 9pm.

Lately, the temperature has been dropping to around 80 degrees shortly after sunset. I still have some new gear that I bought earlier this summer, but haven’t been able to try out. While Donna was away, I set up here at the Northpoint Recreation Center in the Viewpoint Resort. I used my Player One Poseidon astro-camera for the first time. I had some technical difficulties the first night and had to give up. I went back out on October 4th and captured just short of three hours of usable 75 second sub-exposures. This is the Andromeda Galaxy, one of the first deep sky targets I attempted when I got into this hobby about 10 months ago. This is an improvement over my earlier attempt, but it needs more time to reveal the detail.

Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

Although this galaxy is over two million light years away from earth, it’s the closest galaxy to our own Milky Way galaxy.

I mentioned technical difficulties – they hit again the next time I went out. I was very frustrated and finally figured the laptop I was using, which was a refurbished unit I bought on Amazon had signs of impending hard drive failure. I bit the bullet and went to Best Buy and bought a better laptop with a 1TB solid state drive.

Unfortunately, the new laptop was loaded with Windows 11 – the old one was Windows 10. Most of the astrophotography open source (free) software I use was developed for Windows 10. I had to download all of the software programs and reconfigure everything. Some software, NINA for example, had to have new paths configured to communicate with other needed programs. NINA manages my session, communicating with as many as four other programs simultaneously. I’m not that computer savvy and it took a lot frustrating trial and error to get it working.

I’ve wanted to capture an image of the Eastern Veil Nebula for a while – it was to be my target when we were in Cortez, Colorado. It’s getting a little late in the year, but I went for it. My first session was full of technical issues that resulted in only 76 minutes of usable data.

After finally getting all of my gear and software to play nice, I added two more sessions for a total time of four hours and 23 minutes. This produced a nicely detailed view with vibrant, saturated color. The red areas are hydrogen gas and the blue is oxygen.

Eastern Veil Nebula (NGC6992)

The Eastern Veil Nebula is located in the constellation Cygnus. It’s part of a large supernova complex called the Cynus Loop. The entire loop is quite large with distinct areas of gas created when a large star (20 times the size of our sun) died. When stars die (supernova) the outer areas explode away from the core creating these vast clouds of gas, while the core implodes into a high density mass that may become a black hole.

In the photo above, you can see traces of hydrogen throughout, leaving a reddish cast. I might try to capture more of the Cynus Loop – the Western Veil and Pickering’s Triangle.

With Donna back home again, I’ve enjoyed some gourmet dinners. First I’ll share the sheet-pan chicken with shallots and grapes. Served over spaghetti squash, it was an interesting and delicious dish.

Sheet-pan chicken with shallots and grapes

Another goody was creamy scallops with fresh tomatoes.

Creamy scallops with fresh tomatoes and steamed spinach on the side

Although the thermometer flirted with 100 degrees last week, the week ahead and into November calls for highs in the low 80s and eventually down to the 70s. Looking forward to that!

San Diego Housesit

My last post mentioned my desire to get back into terrestial photography in addition to my astrophotography hobby. I’m particularly interested in bird and wildlife photography. I put together a modest kit with a Canon R7 camera body and a few lenses – most useful are the 100-400mm zoom and a 600mm prime lens.

I didn’t go all out on professional level Canon “L” glass – the costs are prohibitive. The consumer-grade Canon lens has advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include, obviously, lower cost. They are also compact and lighter weight. The main disadvantage is the smaller maximum aperture, resulting in slower lens speed – meaning they can’t gather as much light as a faster lens. This is a problem in lower light with fast moving subjects. The “L” lens line generally has better autofocus capability and image stabilization. That’s not to say the consumer-grade line up has “bad” autofocus and image stabilization – it’s pretty amazing in fact.

My first bird photo opportunity came right in our backyard – the fifth hole of the Viewpoint Executive nine-hole golf course. There’s an established breeding colony of non-native Lovebirds here. Donna and I found them in a palm tree.

Rosy-faced Lovebirds

We had a housesit lined up for September 18th through the 27th in San Diego. I knew there would be many opportunities in San DIego for bird photography, especially shore birds. I started practicing my skills before we went there by visiting the Gilbert Riparian Preserve – it’s about 10 miles away from our place at Viewpoint in Mesa.

The riparian preserve is located in east Gilbert on 110 acres of land. Of the 110 acres, 70 are covered by a series of seven ponds (water recharge basins). It’s mostly wooded with several trails throughout the preserve. Many common shore birds such as egrets and herons as well as waterfowl and osprey can be found there. The woods are home to many other species of birds.

Female adult Great-tailed Grackle

While confirming the identity of some birds, I found a curious fact. Some bird names have changed over the years. I remembered Great-tailed grackles as Boat-tail Grackles. I checked my old copy of Peterson’s Field Guide to Western Birds and sure enough, it’s called a Boat-Tail grackle. My new copy of Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Western North America lists the same bird as a Great-Tailed Grackle.

Snowy Egret
Great Egret

Note the black bill and yellow feet on the Snowy Egret while the Great Egret has the opposite – yellow bill and black feet.

Hummingbird in the woods
Osprey – sometimes called a Fish Hawk
Green Heron nabbing a small fish
Swallowed it in one gulp

The homeowner in San Diego asked us to arrive there between 3pm and 4pm. We left Mesa, Arizona at 8am to allow plenty of time to make the 400-mile drive to San Diego. I stopped in Yuma, Arizona to fill our gas tank. Regular unleaded gasoline was $4.14/gallon there. Crossing the Colorado River and entering California, the fuel prices were nearly $2/gallon higher!

California gas cash price at Speedway – the prices were rising during our stay

We arrived at our destination in the Clairemont neighborhood right at 3pm. After spending an hour or so getting familiar with the home and Sadie, their German Shepard, we found out the homeowner wasn’t leaving for the airport until 8pm. We drove down to Mission Bay and parked outside of the Mission Bay RV Resort to look around and kill some time. We used to spend the fall here when we were full-time RVers. The place has really changed.

All of the old park model homes have been removed. The clubhouse is still there and now the swimming pool is open to RVers staying in the park. The park is no longer secured – walking and biking paths through the RV park are open to the public. I would be very concerned about theft in the RV park nowadays – it was bad enough when it was all gated and patrolled.

Donna and I hiked around the point defining De Anza Cove and I photographed a few birds.

Great Blue Heron

I found a shorebird I didn’t recognize on the south side of the point and shot a few frames.

Mystery bird

I uploaded the image into Google Images and it came back with a match to a Reddish Egret. I did a search and found these are fairly rare in southern California – only three or four are reported each year and fewer are documented with photographs. I contacted the San Diego Audobon Society and they asked for photos. I sent them the files. They got back to me and told me I had mis-identified the bird. It wasn’t a Reddish Egret, it was a Little Blue Heron and they were pretty excited about it. Finding one on the west coast north of Mexico is extremely rare and I had it documented! The coloration of the bill positively identified it – I should have caught that.

The next day, we drove up to La Jolla and walked around the La Jolla Cove. I called it a target-rich environment. There are many bird and mammals that are easily accessible there. Pelicans are ubiquitous.

California Brown Pelican coming in for a water landing

The Children’s Pool area is over-run with sea lions and seals.

The old man presiding over snoozing sea lion pups
This sea lion pup is napping with one eye open
Gull in flight

I had plenty of opportunities to practice capturing birds in flight.

Later that evening, we returned to La Jolla after taking care of Sadie, to join Donna’s sister, Sheila and Jeff for dinner and had a nice night. Donna walked Sadie two or three times each day while we were there.

The next morning, I drove to the San Diego River estuary along old Sea World Drive. The lighting conditions each morning were challenging. There was a marine layer overcast – while that provided a diffuse light source with minimal shadows, it also limited the brightness. I found a couple of interesting birds along with more egrets. In hindsight, I wish I would have switched to my 600mm lens, but I stuck with the faster 100-400mm zoom.

Adult female Belted Kingfisher

As I was loading my gear in the car, I spotted a large raptor in the sky headed in my direction. It landed at the top of a pine tree next to the road. I quickly got my camera out of the car and grabbed a few shots. Right away, I thought “Marsh Hawk.”

Once again, Google Images told me I had it wrong. It was identified as a Northern Harrier. I couldn’t find a Marsh Hawk image. After searching further on the internet, I found the Northern Harriers were formerly called Marsh Hawks! Fooled by another name change.

On Friday afternoon, we met up with my high school buddies, Gary Stemple and John Barrientez at the Riverwalk golf course in Mission Valley. I don’t think I mentioned the house where we were house-sitting was located less than a mile away from Clairemont High School and Marston Junior High where I went to school in the early ’70s.

Gary, Donna and John at Riverwalk golf course

I rode along for the first nine holes, then headed back to attend to Sadie. This was a tough golf course with some long 500 yard+ holes with the San Diego River crossing some fairways. It took them about five hours for 18 holes.

We had a couple of dinners at my old watering hole, Offshore Tavern and Grill where we met up with some of the old crowd and had our favorite dinners of poke and seared ahi. We met up with Mona Sojot one night – it was great to see her again and see how well she’s doing. Donna also met with Sini one night for a walk at Mission Bay and dinner at Offshore.

We played pickleball one afternoon as guests of Sheila and Jeff at the private San Diego Tennis Racquet Club. We played four games and it was enjoyable, although I was a bit rusty. I’ll be giving pickleball lessons over the winter here at Viewpoint again.

We made two more morning hikes to photograph birds. We went to Cabrillo National Monument and drove down to the Point Loma tide pools. I caught a couple of shots of pelicans surfing. That’s what I call it when a pelican glides on the column of air being pushed along as a wave comes ashore. They glide close to the water’s surface for long distances this way.

Pelican surfing
A squadron of brown pelicans heading my way
Cormorant
Cabrillo Historic lighthouse – viewed from below at the tide pools near the new Point Loma lighthouse
House Sparrow on a pier on Shelter Island
A pelican splashes down after diving 40 feet though the air to capture a fish

Our last birding stop was a morning hike through Tecolote Canyon. I found a few interesting subjects to photograph there.

California Thrasher
Mannekin in Tecolote Canyon – non-native but well established in San Diego
Woodpecker
California Ground Squirrel

I’m working with new (to me) software to “develop” and process my images. It’s different from astrophotography image processing. I’m mainly using a program called DarkTable which is very powerful, but I’m finding it complicated. My images out of the camera aren’t bad, but as my processing skill improves, I expect better results.

We drove home uneventfully on Wednesday, September 27th. We made our usual stop at Dateland and bought date shakes and Donna picked up a few packages of dates. We hit some traffic as we neared Mesa as the evening rush hour was in full swing.

No dinner plates this time. It looks like we’ve finally beat the heat as the forecast is calling for cooler tempertures with the highs in the 80s and 90s for the week ahead.

Cortez Housesit

Another month is history as time marches onward. August wasn’t very eventful here – it’s the hottest month of the year and this year we had very little monsoon activity. I spent an inordinate amount of time indoors, enjoying the cool air conditioning.

Donna gets out to golf at least once a week and also plays tennis three times a week in the early morning hours. When she golfs the nine-hole course, I usually sit on the back deck with a cup of coffee about 45 or 50 minutes after her tee time. I use an old pair of cheap Bushnell binoculars and pick her up on the fourth hole green, then watch as she hits the fifth hole right behind our place.

After doing that one morning, I had a wild idea about upgrading to a decent pair of binoculars. I looked online for a couple of days, then decided I needed to have a hands-on comparison. So I drove over to Bass Pro Shop near Dobson Road and the Loop 202 in northwest Mesa. Mesa is a big city – nearly 140 square miles and it’s the third largest in Arizona by population after Phoenix and Tucson. I’m getting off track – I meant to say it’s about an 18-mile drive from Viewpoint in east Mesa to Bass Pro in northwest Mesa.

The optics department in the Bass Pro Shop is on the second floor on the east side. I was able to handle and look through a number of binoculars. On the upper west wall of the store are a series of windows – the clerk told me it’s 91 yards from the optics counter to the west wall. That’s right – you could fit a football field inside of the store! He then told me I should look through the second window from the left and find a large white house with a red tile roof on Camelback Mountain. That house was just over eight miles away.

I was astounded! With all of the binoculars I sampled, I could focus through a window 91 yards away and get detail on the house eight miles away! I was mainly interested in 8X (eight power – the views appear eight times closer than the actual distance). I also tried 10X. For me, 10X is pushing it. Although it makes objects appear closer than 8X and can provide more detail, this is offset by my inability to hold the larger binocular steady enough to take advantage of any detail improvement.

I tried a few different brands and price ranges. I was tempted to break the bank on a high-end set, but kept my sanity. I found that once I reached a certain quality level, any improvements were incremental. Spending twice as much didn’t make the view twice as good to my eye. I ended up buying 8X42 Vortex binoculars that are light years ahead of the Bushnell binoculars I was using.

I took the binoculars out at night and could see surprising detail on the moon. Not on the same level as my telescopes, but better than I expected.

We had a housesit scheduled at the end of the month in Cortez, Colorado. It’s about a 400-mile drive from Mesa. The homeowner wanted us to arrive around 10:30 or 11:00 am on Thursday, August 31st. That would mean a dark-thirty departure, so we opted to leave on Wednesday and stop halfway in Gallup, New Mexico. I loaded the Jeep Compass with my astronomy gear – I took my Astro-Tech AT115EDT telescope and Losmandy mount. I had a target in mind for the dark skies we anticipated at the property outside of town. I also brought my binoculars.

We left around 9:15 am and made it to the Royal Holiday Motel in Gallup around 3 pm – we’d lost an hour crossing into Mountain Daylight Time at the New Mexico border. Gallup can be a rough-and-tumble town. We were on the west side along Route 66, a boulevard lined with motels. We drove downtown and had dinner at a diner with traditional New Mexico cuisine. After dinner, we went to the historic Hotel el Rancho for a cocktail.

The Hotel el Rancho has been in Gallup since the 1940s and many film stars have hung their hat there while making movies in locations nearby. Hollywood stars including John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Kirk Douglas, Gregory Peck and Suzanna Pleschette have stayed there. More recently Emilio Estevez, Lou Diamond Phillips and Kiefer Sutherland and others were there to film Young Guns II. They had many framed photographs and memorabilia on display. The lobby was classic with twin curving staircases on the left and right leading up to a second floor landing. The wood work is grand.

Historic Hotel el Rancho
el Rancho lobby

The Royal Holiday Motel where we stayed advertised free continental breakfast – it’s a lie. Unless you call Cheerios and white bread and a toaster continental breakfast. We passed and headed out before 8am and grabbed a quick bite at McDonald’s in Walmart. I also needed to pick up eye drops and Flonase for pollen allergies which I forgot to pack.

We arrived at the home outside of Cortez right at 11am. Diane, the homeowner gave us a tour and instructions on the care of her two dogs, Charlie and Zuni. The dogs were adorable – well-mannered and a joy to take care of. The property was on four acres in a sparsly populated area northwest of town. The nearest neighbor was a quarter of a mile away. Once we settled in, I set up my telescope.

Telescope under cover on the east side of the property

I had the telescope protected from dust or rain under a cover that also reflects sunlight off of it. I made a couple of changes to my set-up. This isn’t the best way to go – I usually try to only change one thing at a time in case I have problems and need to troubleshoot. If you change multiple pieces in the set-up, it can lead to confusing results. I was using a new camera – a Player One Poseidon C. This has an APS-C size sensor which is larger than what I used previously. I also changed the field flattener from a TS 1.0x to an Astro-Tech 0.8x. The 0.8x means it’s a focal length reducer, resulting in a wider field of view. The wide field along with the larger sensor would allow me to frame my target to best advantage. I was targeting the Eastern Veil Nebula.

I got things rolling after dark and completed the calibration process fairly quickly. Then I had to find focus with the new set-up. I ran into a snag. I couldn’t get a focused image of the stars. I was perplexed and started putting in spacers to increase the back-focus length. I couldn’t get it. I finally discovered the problem was a light leak in the Player One filter drawer creating reflections – another new piece of equipment.

Once I fixed the light leak, I decided it would be easier if I focused on the bright, full moon. Then I could fine-focus on stars. I slewed to the moon and took a test shot. It was so far from focus I was lost again. Then I looked up at the moon. It was obscured by clouds! Clouds had rolled in while I was fiddling with my equipment and I didn’t even notice. I covered the ‘scope and called it a night.

I’ve always said astrophotography teaches you patience. I had to be patient and try again the next night. Friday had partly cloudy skies all day and it was worse after dark. The next lesson I’ve learned from astrophotography is acceptance – accept the things that are out of your control and cannot be changed. So I waited for Saturday night. Clouds again. My telescope never came out from under the cover and I took it down on Sunday night and packed it in the Jeep for Monday’s departure.

View to the northeast from the second story deck
View to the south from the upper deck

The house had two hummingbird feeders on the upper deck. It also had two bird feeders in the back garden area. I enjoyed sitting on the lower deck area and puffing on a cigar while I used my binoculars to bird watch. With the clear detailed views provided by the binoculars, I could easily distinguish the markings and positively identify a Woodson’s Jay. It was easy to tell it apart from the Pinon Jays that also came to feeders. The sparrows were harder to identify. Not only are there many similar species, there are also many variations of color and to a degree, markings on what is called the same bird. House sparrows are a case in point. I really enjoyed the bird watching.

Donna enjoyed daily morning walks with the dogs. Charlie was super-easy and would approach me wherever I was and put his head on my knee waiting for me to scratch his head and ears. Zuni took a couple of days to warm up to me, but then she would lay at my feet wherever I was sitting.

On Saturday, Donna and I drove into town for the Farmers’ Market. We also went to the grand opening of the Pueblo Seed Company store where Donna purchased a few items.

Pueblo Seed Company bounty

We departed from Cortez on Monday, September 4th – Labor Day. I anticipated about a six-hour drive time. We retraced our route down US491 through the Navajo Nation to Gallup, then west on I-40 to Holbrook where we exited onto AZ377. I blinked and missed the gas station in Holbrook and decided to continue on to Heber-Overgaard. This went against my grain – I don’t like to run below a quarter tank of fuel, I like to keep about 100-mile reserve. We went below a quarter tank before we reached Heber-Overgaard.

We found a Subway sandwich shop in Heber-Overgaard and I also filled our gas tank there. We gained an hour crossing into Arizona which maintains Mountain Standard Time year-round. We went west on AZ260 toward Payson. The traffic was heavier than usual, due to the holiday long weekend. Donna saw a traffic alert on her phone.

AZ260 goes from four lanes (two in each direction) to two lanes a couple of miles east of Star Valley. This constriction was a choke point that brought traffic to a standstill. We crept along, bumper-to-bumper from there until we made it through Payson. It took two hours to cover about 10 miles! Remember what I said about learning acceptance. I kept my cool as we crept along. Once we were past Payson on Highway 87, I lost my patience along with everyone else as we sped along in excess of 80mph. My six-hour drive turned into nine hours.

A few days ago, I was thinking about how much I enjoyed the bird watching. When I was a kid, my late brother Ricky and I often went bird watching in the woods by Lake Whitehurst in Norfolk, Virginia. We also did it when we lived in Waukeegan, Illinois. I could identify many more birds then than I can remember now.

I also thought about how much photography I used to do. I took a semester of Photography at Palomar College in San Marcos, California in 1981. In the late ’90s, I transitioned to digital photography and invested a lot in camera bodies, lenses and lighting equipment. I did high school sports photography when my daughters were in school and a local paper published many of my photos. I’ve maintained photos on a web host called Pbase.com since then.

My photography gear is long outdated as I’ve only used cell phone pictures for the last decade. I decided to take up the hobby again. When I’m not doing astrophotography at night, I intend to try bird and wildlife photography during the day. After a bit of research, I went for a mirrorless digital camera body from Canon. I had a bit of serendipity. I phoned B&H Photo in New York where I used to buy much of my gear. They had an unadvertised special on the camera and lenses that I wanted. Canon sets a minimum advertised price (MAP) on its retailers. But for B&H’s 50th anniversary, they had a special event called Bild50 and applied additional discounts when I placed my order. I saved $550 over the online price and had free overnight shipping to boot! Now I’m on another learning curve as I wade through the menus on my Canon R7 and try to optimize the set-up.

I’ll close this long post with a couple of dinner plates. First is a pan-seared pork chop with garlic and spices, served with roasted baby potatoes and asparagus.

Next we have Donna’s crab cake served with a corn, tomato, onion and avocado salad.

On the 18th of this month, we’ll be heading out for another house sit. This time we’ll be in San Diego in the neighborhood where I went to junior high and high school – Clairemont. We have a nine-day housesit and I’m looking forward to photographing shore birds at the beach. I won’t take astrophotography gear as we’ll be in the middle of the San Diego metro light-dome.

Hot Times

July was mostly uneventful as the weather warmed up in the Valley of the Sun. As expected, it became downright hot in the metro-Phoenix area. Of course, the media sensationalized the hot weather, claiming a record number of days over 110 degrees. The Weather Channel almanac recorded a total of 20 days of highs of 110 or higher in Mesa for the month of July, including a stretch of 17 consecutive days starting on the 13th of July.

I don’t know where they record the official metro temperature for recordkeeping, but I imagine it’s somewhere in the concrete jungle near the Phoenix city center. There was also a lot of talk about the nighttime lows staying the 90s. I think some of this has to be attributed to the amount of desert that’s been paved over and the amount of concrete poured for various buildings over the last couple of years. This retains a lot of heat – more than the open desert.

With all of that in mind, a look at the almanac also shows that these high temperatures aren’t that unusual – it’s always hot here in July and August. The “record” number of consecutive days over 110 were set because we didn’t have “breaks” where the thermometer only hit 108 or 109.

The most unusual thing I’ve observed this summer is the lack of monsoon activity by this time of year. The southwest has a monsoon season the begins mid-June and extends through the end of September. The monsoon is characterized by intense thunderstorms, higher humidity and high winds. This weather pattern comes from moisture brought up from the west coast of Mexico and is strongest in Arizona although it also affects southern California, parts of Utah, Colorado and New Mexico.

Thunderheads and lightning have been visible over the Superstition Mountains from our place in Mesa, Arizona, but we’ve had very little rainfall and only a few windstorms with blowing dust. Much less activity than we normally see.

The hot weather curtailed much of the acitivity around here. In July, Donna continued to play tennis, starting at 6:30am to beat the heat and she also golfed early. I’ve given up pickleball for this stretch. Astrophotography is out of the question until temperatures cool or when we do our next housesit in a cooler climate.

In previous posts, I mentioned trouble with the swamp cooler in our Arizona room. The pump quit working and I replaced it. The drive belt for the squirrel cage fan also needed to be replaced. The new belt didn’t last – it quickly slipped and burned up. The guy at the Weather Shack told me I had the belt set too tight – it needs a certain amount of slack to work properly. I replaced it again and set it how he had instructed. Then the cooler quit working and I found the root cause of the drive belt troubles. The shaft bearings in the fan were shot and finally seized.

I thought about replacing the swamp cooler with a new one as it had served us well. There were drawbacks though. The main issue is high humidity in the monsoon season. Swamp coolers are most effective with dry air and lose their effectiveness as humidity rises. A replacement cooler would run about $2,500 plus installation.

I went to the Weather Shack and looked at alternatives. Specifically I was interested in looking at a ductless mini-split heat pump. Another alternative would be to add ducting from our existing heat pump to the Arizona room, but that had drawbacks as well. It would mean running ducting through the crawlspace and putting in floor vents. Additionally it would also require a return duct to circulate the air back though the evaporator housing. This would reduce our limited floor space. It would also cost about $2,500.

A mini-split ductless system splits the air conditioning unit or heat pump into two separate elements. You have the compressor and condenser unit that is situated outside of the house. From there copper tubes carry the refrigerant into the house to the evaporator and interior fan unit. This splits the cooling (or heating) unit from the blower assembly with only a couple of hoses joining the two with no need for ducting.

I wasn’t sure of what size unit I would need for our 400-square-foot Arizona room and I was also skeptical of making it a do-it-yourself project. It would require a few special tools and equipment to do it properly. The guy at Weather Shack gave me contact information for a guy he recommended for installation, Dan Shroeder. I called him right away and he stopped by later that afternoon.

He looked the Arizona room over and checked how much heat was coming from the ceiling. The metal roof over the Arizona room was surprisingly cool, due to the Cool Foam installation I had done last year. Although it was 114 degrees outside with full sun on the roof, inside we could place our hands on the ceiling and it wasn’t hot. He said a one-ton unit was all I needed. He said if I bought the mini-split heat pump from the Weather Shack, he could do the installation the following day, Friday, July 14th.

The Weather Shack had a stack of Hessaire mini-split heat pumps on sale. I bought the one-ton heat pump kit for $532 including tax. This was an unbelievable deal – Home Depot wanted nearly $900 for the same unit. Dan showed up with a helper the following morning and did an excellent job. He had it up and running shortly after noon.

He told me the main failure point on mini-split systems is the connectors of the refrigerant tubing. He cut the ends off of the copper tubing and made new flares as he didn’t trust the factory flares. They could easily be damaged during shipping. He also replaced the foam insulation sleeves over the copper tubing with another type that he said was more UV resistant and durable. He wired a dedicated power circuit from the household electrical service panel. He had the proper equipment to evacuate the system to eliminate any moisture before he charged it with refrigerant. Altogether he did a fine job and charged $500 which I thought was more than fair.

Hessaire mini-split heat pump outdoor unit
Refrigerant tubing is under this cover and enters the room at the top
Mini-split indoor evaporator and blower interior assembly

Now I needed to have the swamp cooler removed and the hole in the wall for the swamp cooler duct filled in. I called Paragon Home Services and they came out and removed the swamp cooler.

Covering and sealing the hole for the swamp cooler duct – siding was added later

They did a good job filling the hole in the wall and repairing the interior drywall. The worker commented on the 2×4 framing of the Arizona room. He said it was solid and better than what he usually sees in these type of room additions. They charged $375 for the job and hauled the swamp cooler away.

We are very happy with the outcome. Our Arizona room is comfortable and we’ll be able to utilize the mini-split system for heat in the winter so that’s a plus.

I dropped Donna off at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport at dark-thirty on Sunday morning, July 23rd. She had a flight to Cincinnati, Ohio for band camp. I know, band camp jokes, right? She had a busy week with classes, seminars and practices that entailed about five hours of playing the clarinet daily. The camp finished on Friday and she then flew to Tampa, Florida to visit her sister, Linda. She came back Monday evening, the last day of July.

Meanwhile, I was holding the fort down and trying to keep Ozark the cat company. It was getting a bit boring. To break things up, I went to RJ’s cigar shop one afternoon. This shop has a large walk-in humidor and a two-room cigar lounge. To enjoy a fine cigar in the air-conditioned lounge, you have to buy a cigar there. My previous experience with these types of lounges found high prices on the cigars they sold. I was pleasantly surprised to find RJ’s prices were very reasonable – within a buck or two of online pricing.

I figured that I would splurge on a cigar I wouldn’t normally buy for my home humidor. I went for a Padron Serie 1926 – it was a $23 cigar. And it was worth every penny. I read my Kindle and enjoyed puffing for about 90 minutes. I saw three guys come in together with a cooler. They bought cigars and sat around a table in the lounge and proceeded to pull beers out of the cooler while they talked and puffed. Hmm, is this legal?

I came back a few days later and bought another Padron, a 1964 this time. I think this may be my all-time favorite cigar. It lasted two hours while I read again. I asked the shop owner about bringing your own drinks into the lounge. He said it was fine and if I wanted to bring liquor he had an ice machine, cups and mixers in the back room. Who knew?

My diet suffered while Donna was away – nothing new there. Here are a few of the dishes she prepared before she left. I don’t cook like that, although I do have a few specialties for the grill and smoker and I make killer grilled cheese sandwiches, omelets and Japanese fried rice.

The first plate is a Mediterranean chicken skewer with cilantro lime rice and Mexican corn on the side. Delicious! (We bought four prepared skewers for under $10 from Costco – a great find.)

The next dinner plate is shoyu chicken over rice with grilled bok choy. A favorite for sure.

I couldn’t pass up USDA Prime beef tender loin steaks (filet mignon) at Costco. I grilled the steaks medium rare and Donna made sides of green beans with bacon and roasted baby potatoes.

That’s about it for dinner examples. This afternoon, we’ll be meeting Mike and Jodi Hall at RJ’s Cigars. Mike and I will puff stogies and solve world problems while the girls catch up. I’ll bring a cooler this time.

Not much to report weatherwise. It will continue to be hot for the next couple of weeks. Monsoon rain should arrive sooner or later. I don’t see any sign of rain in the 10-day forecast.

Prescott Housesit

Another month has flown by – we’re now more than halfway through 2023. It’s officially summer and the heat is on in the Valley of the Sun. Over the past two weeks, we’ve only had one day that didn’t reach triple digits – the high was 99 degrees on June 23rd.

We escaped the heat for a week while we had a housesit near Prescott. It was in an area called Williamson Valley, about 25 miles northwest of downtown Prescott. The elevation was more than 5,000 feet above sea level and the temperatures were nearly 20 degrees cooler than the Phoenix metro area. We were there from June 25th to July 1st.

The house was a beautiful custom home on a 12-acre lot located on a private road. All of the houses there were custom-built on large lots. Housesitting included caring for Riley, a 10-year-old terrier mix. He was a very well-behaved dog and Donna enjoyed hiking with him in the national forest – there was a trailhead less than 1/2 mile away. She was happy for some R & R having just returned from moving her mom into assisted living in Vermont. After her morning hike with Riley, she tended to the raised bed vegetable garden and also spent an hour every day deadheading more than 20 rose bushes in the backyard. Then she’d spend the afternoon reading or practicing clarinet.

The wind would kick up every day with gusts of 20-25 mph. But sometime around 6 or 7pm, it would switch off and only a light breeze of 2-5 mph would blow. This was ideal for astrophotography – also the dark Bortle 3 skies were awesome. The Bortle scale for light pollution runs from 1 to 9, with 1 being a dark, wilderness type night sky with no artificial light. A 9 would be an inner-city area with a light dome of artificial light. The only issue I had to deal with was the moon – it was waxing and nearly full. The moon was bright enough to cast distinct shadows.

We drove into town on Monday. We went to the old downtown area known as Whiskey Row. We had lunch at the oldest saloon in Arizona – the Palace Restaurant and Saloon. It opened in 1877 and was rebuilt after a fire swept through Whiskey Row in 1900. In the late 1800s, it was a rough and tumble place. Wyatt Earp frequented the Palace and they say he killed two men in gunfights behind the saloon. His brother Virgil lived in Prescott. Doc Holliday was another patron and they say he had a winning streak playing poker on Whiskey Row and pocketed $10,000 – quite a haul in those times. We enjoyed the lunch and the ambiance of the old saloon.

I had a couple of astrophotography targets in mind for our stay. Once I realized how bright the moon was, I had to revise my plan. One of my tentative targets was too close to the bright moon.

APM 140-980 and Losmandy mount

The house had an attached three-car garage and a separate detached two-car garage. I set up my APM 140-980 refractor in the driveway in front of the detached garage. The really nice thing about this very private property was that I could leave my gear set up for the duration of the stay. No need to tear it down, pack it away and reset it again the next night. I just covered it with a ‘scope cover I bought on Amazon.

Covered telescope and mount

The first three nights I captured the Dumbbell Nebula (M27). It was in the eastern sky while the moon was southwest. I recorded more than six hours of data captured in 120-second exposures. I think this is the most time I’ve had on any target. Unfortunately, I failed to bring my narrow band filter and had to use a broadband filter instead. The narrow band filter would have captured more vivid coloration of the hydrogen and oxygen gases.

Dumbbell Nebula

The Dumbbell Nebula is a planetary nebula – it’s made up of gases in a spherical (planet-like) shape around a central star. It’s 1,360 light years away from earth.

I planned to switch to my second target on Wednesday night, but I had tracking problems with my mount and had to quit the session. Thursday morning, I went in search of a new battery for the Gemini mount controller. I had already opened up the mount and looked for a mechanical issue. Common wisdom says when you can’t explain why the Gemini controlled mount is acting up, replace the CR2450 battery. Did I mention the remoteness of this property? I lucked out and found a battery at Walgreen’s (my second stop after Ace hardware) in Chino Valley – about 15 miles away.

The battery didn’t fix it. I took the covers off the worm-gear assemblies and found the problem on the right ascension worm. The bearing block on the worm had worked loose and was allowing play in the assembly. I don’t know how I missed it earlier. I re-adjusted it and re-assembled everything and it looked good.

Thursday night I started imaging the Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6946). I thought Fireworks was an appropriate target as we headed into the Fourth of July weekend. The Fireworks Galaxy is a medium-sized, face-on spiral galaxy about 22 million light years away from earth. It’s considered to be a challenging target for experienced astrophotographers. I wanted to take advantage of the dark skies and try to capture it. It was north-northwest of our location.

I shot 120-second exposures on Thursday night and then shot 150-second exposures on Friday night. The mount was back to guiding great and I ended up with just over five hours of total captured data. I’m happy with the result.

Fireworks Galaxy

There were so many stars visible in the dark sky – my software indicated over 2,000 stars visible in the Dumbbell Nebula photo and more than 1,000 stars in the Fireworks Galaxy photo.

On Saturday morning, Donna did some light cleaning and housekeeping while I packed our luggage, miscellaneous kitchen items we’d brought and my astronomy gear in the Jeep Compass. I should mention the Jeep performed flawlessly, giving us 30 miles per gallon on the way up and over 32 miles per gallon on the return trip. Overall, it was a very enjoyable week, but we were glad to be back home. Riley (the dog) was an early riser, so I was lacking sleep during our stay.

Last night, we took the golf cart over to the South Point recreation building here at Viewpoint and watched fireworks from the second floor deck. We had 360-degree views of fireworks. Donna is back on the tennis courts – they play early, starting at 6:30am so they can finish before it gets too hot.

Triple digit highs will be the norm for the next couple of months. Our next housesit isn’t until the end of August when we’re scheduled to go to Cortez, CO. Donna will be flying to Cincinnati in a couple of weeks for a band camp to play her clarinet. Then she’ll fly to Florida to visit her sister before returning here. I’ll be trying to beat the heat with Ozark the cat here in Mesa.