Clear skies~

[Star Dad]

I am exhausted! For the first time in my 5 years of AP, we've had four consecutive nights of (semi) clear skies. This rare event, I credit, to the fact that I have not bought any new equipment. I have so many images to process it will take me weeks. Nonetheless, I feel I needed to post my thanks to the weather gods. I made a serious dent in my remaining Messier images, even snagging M46 which barely rose over the roof of my neighbors house. M47 ended up right in his chimney and then ducked out of sight behind his roof. But at least I got M46.

I do have to say that two nights ago one catastrophe after another started my evening. First it looked like the mouse shorted out. Then the imaging camera died, the hub died. ASCOM wouldn't even talk to the mount. So I took the laptop out of it's usual box/plastic tub I used a a light shield. unplugged everything, went into the house scrounging for a mouse with a wire and after 10 minutes struggling managed to extract one from my main computer. So back out I go and plug everything in. Get the polar alignment after having to do it twice because I screwed up an alignment star in Polemaster. Slewed to target - no where near it. OK, then back to home position. No movement. mouse dead. D*** it. reboot computer (again). Finally everything worked ok, but the laptop battery complained about the cold (one of the reasons I keep it in a tub). We had some serious frost.

So yesterday I decided to set up early in the daylight. What do you know? Everything worked as if nothing had gone wrong the night before. I was so mad I wanted to drop kick Windows into the trash. But maybe the weather gods were just messing with me because - four nights in a row.

[UlteriorModem]

I know how you feel. After a long run like that your 'almost' happy to get a night or two off

[Star Dad]

I know how you feel. After a long run like that your 'almost' happy to get a night or two off

Amen! Sleep glorious sleeeeeeeep. :asleep:

[bladekeeper]

Congrats on four nights in a row! Unprecedented!

I've had a few nights where the computer goes nuts, ASCOM goes nuts, the mount goes nuts, PHD2 goes nuts. I had one night where the imaging cam died, and since the guide cam was slaved off that, it died too.

I finally traced that down to an obscure and hidden tripped breaker in, of all places, my garage. Once I "untripped" it, all was well.

I don't think that stuff is due to weather gods. Weather gods are more strategic. These kinds of tactical things are pretty much just Loki.

[Star Dad]

Ah, Loki. Yes indeed. That makes sense. Murphy was an optimist. "Anything than can go wrong will." No, not anything - everything. well, back to processing all those images...

[UlteriorModem]

Congrats on four nights in a row! Unprecedented!

I've had a few nights where the computer goes nuts, ASCOM goes nuts, the mount goes nuts, PHD2 goes nuts. I had one night where the imaging cam died, and since the guide cam was slaved off that, it died too.

I finally traced that down to an obscure and hidden tripped breaker in, of all places, my garage. Once I "untripped" it, all was well.

I don't think that stuff is due to weather gods. Weather gods are more strategic. These kinds of tactical things are pretty much just Loki.

I did a job once, it was an outdoor activity pavilion. It had a water cooler / bottle filler. It was connected to a 20 amp GFI breaker. The breaker kept tripping on ground fault. The owner was convinced we had sized the breaker incorrectly and wanted to just swap it out for a 30 amp non GFI. Well of course you cant do that.

Got to looking into it and turned out the water cooler was for indoor use. When it was humid outdoors it would create so much condensate it would drip into the motor windings causing a ground fault!

Breaker was working as intended and may well have saved a life or two

Any time I find a tripped breaker I am always reminded of that episode and have to carefully considered just why it was tripped