Out came my 10 inch homemade Stardust and the 6 inch Red Dwarf for 4 hours of lazy mooning Friday night, July 31. Friday nite I sketched south pole terminator objects crater Short and Moretus, a ring mountain, and Maginus. Shadows and central peak on Moretus were magnificent Friday night! Central peak shadow looked like a spike! Black nebulousity masked Clavius - sunlight bathed it for all of us Saturday night - was nestled snugly in between Moretus and Maginus, a huge walled plain. Clavius looked like Barnard's Inkspot - B-86 - an inky shadow of things to come the next night. Lazy scanning around Capricornus and environs at the end of a hectic week - Saturn, the planetary nebula NGC7009, since I didn't want to stay up for Saturn, the planet... I looked at meglected M-30 in Capricornus. A scoot over to Scutum revealed those birds, duck, swan and eagle. One really cool blood red Mira Variable star, classification ranges from M4 to M9!! is RR Sag, I happened across it on my Pluto purveying. My Phillips Color Star Atlas is alot of fun, even if it ignores M107. I was looking, er lurking for Pluto, knowing I wouldn't see it from my deck, but looking for the star field. Planets like Uranus and Neptune were easy to see. Just whimsy stargazing for me tonight. Stretched out and looked up waiting for my imagination to suggest a target. Then I grunted and attempted to stand up and starhop to it. Sometimes I decided to just stay horizontal with the binoculars. Then I just waited for Jupiter to drift over the roof and fireplace. I didn't want to stop or go in, it was so peaceful and warm and relaxing.

Off I went to Santa Rosa with 4 mirrors Saturday morning. Bevelled the edges of 2 10 incher edges on a mirror grinding machine in a friend's garage. Grit is put on like spackle, with a little piece of metal. The metal is a paddle, and with slight pressure, the grit eventually starts sticking as an edge is ground into the former shiny sharpness. The mirror grinding wheel reminded me of a potters wheel a bit, spinning round and round. Finally got an edge, and then widened and rounded it. Then used a knife sharpening stone to smooth the bevel. It was very rythmic work. I really enjoyed it. Then I heated and stirred the chunky hunks of pitch on a hot plate. Tested the liquid pitch for hardness. (Fingernail dent after 10 seconds in the ball of pitch, should dent but not cut thru). Cooked it longer to harden a bit. Smeared on the turpentine and poured out the aromatic gooey pitch on the glass tool. Smeared cerium oxide and warm water on the 3 ready mirrors (2 little classmade 4 inchers, and one 10 incher for an ATM in Idaho), after taking them out of their hot bath. Pressed the grooves with a wet dowel. Now we had three plates of butterscotch candy pitch laps to savor. Yum! Pressed the mirror curve onto the pitch so the pitch conformed to the curve, and to imbed the abrasive cerium oxide in the yielding pitch. My pitch partner and I were mighty pleased with our pretty pitch laps! Maybe it took us 2 minutes per lap and thanks to heat, the stuff didn't harden as quick, but the grooves we pressed had to be regrooved due to the heat, they just squished back togther. I love doing this! A feeling of well being and accomplishment follows. All the peaceful and concentrated prep work, bevelling, heating, preparing the work space, bathing the mirrors, testing the pitch, and then it's all over in 2 minutes! I even like this than collimating!

I then got my second Foucoult test lesson, where I read the mirror zones thru the Foucoult tester, and compared my results with my instructor. This will take practice, but my instructor is starting me out with good mirrors, and I mean a really good (to 27th wave) mirror, so I can see what to look for, how to calculate, when to stop reading. We will read several times at different hours of the day and night and average the results. Once trained I'll be able to figure the Striking Sparks telescope mirrors that the Sonoma County Astro Club gives away to kids.

Two Hawaiian musical celebrations later I reclaimed my mirrors - it was too hot to leave the pitch laps in the Sonoma heat. I sketched the romantically named Clavius craterlets - D, C, CB, N, J, JA and L and K...Saturday night. And a few other itty bitty ones. The crater crescent inside Clavius, its semi circle departing from Rutherford, one of the two biggies on the wall edge, (Porter is the other) are very nice and symetrical. They circle and embrace the central peak. There I was - Aloha clad with orchid leis at midnight! Whatever did the neighbors think!