Back Substacking!
A busy summer is no excuse to ignore my multitude of fans ;-)
I realized that I last posted in April or May, then things got busy. Very busy.
When I last updated you, I had started working in an Atomic Physics lab for the summer. I'm still there, loving working with some of the most intelligent people I have ever met, and making some really good friends too! We also had a family holiday in Europe, and then, coming back, had to deal with a death in the family, my younger brother David. While David and I were not at all close, I must admit that his death threw me for a bit of a loop. Nothing brings one’s own mortality to mind quite so effectively as losing a younger sibling.
I also had the summer project of building a pretty cool astrograph, which is now complete. An astrograph is like a telescope, except that you can’t look through it. It takes pictures only. Modern astrographs are highly automated. While I wouldn’t describe them as easy to use, once you understand them, the results can be spectacular. “The Beast,” as I have named it, is a Rowe Ackerman Schmidt Astrograph, operating on a Harmonic Equatorial mount with automatic focusing and guiding using a Raspberry Pi-based control centre running software from the ZWO company of Beijing, China.
The beast rocks!
I commissioned it late in mid-September and, while the learning curve was not insignificant, I am now finally getting some decent results, such as this beautifully captured image of M33, the Triangulum Galaxy. Most people know of the Andromeda Galaxy, the Milky Way’s companion in the local group. M33 is also part of the same group, but further away and much smaller.
So, now I am mired in schoolwork, and it is an exciting term: Quantum Mechanics, Planetary Astronomy, Astronomical Techniques and, as always, Math. I am also doing a research course working in the atomic physics lab.
I will try to do better at posting, but while I always expected my retirement to be less busy, it is not. While things are certainly more fun than the last couple of years of working, it is really a tough slog some days, and I have to say that time management has become a significant focus.
No matter! I will sign off as there is a Quantum Mechanics assignment due at midnight tomorrow and an astrophotometry one due three days later—no rest for your average wannabe astrophysicist.