I had my first opportunity to try to image the comet tonight. With a small window of opportunity before the Moon rose I traveled light and just set the DSLR on a tripod. This is a 30 second shot at ISO 6400. Maybe in a few days it will be clear again and I can use the SCT. The bright star at the top is Capella, the comet is a little lower and to the left.
Did some work on the camper today. What you see here is the entire passenger side, part of the back and driver side with rigid foam attached. I’m using 1″ Foamular in 4’x8′ sheets and gorilla glue. If you look close you can probably see where some of glue foamed up and ran down. This is how far two sheets go. About two more sheets should finish the driver side and the front through which I shot the picture. Two more will go in the roof or lid since that will lift off. I’ve estimated 7 sheets would be required so I might be ahead.After that I’ll make the semi-final decision about the skin. The current plan is canvas and lots of paint on the outside and 3mm plywood on the inside. Many people swear by this technique, canvas over foam. so I’m hopeful. And it should be light. If that doesn’t work I can always put plywood over that.Obviously nothing inside yet but once I’m done with the foam and skin I could take it’s vast emptiness somewhere and open up an army cot.
I just got some 15×70 binoculars. Nominally for astronomy, I can see these being used for birding as well, mainly as an alternative to a spotting scope. The 70mm objectives will bring in a lot of light. For astronomy, I’ll use them with a parallelogram mount I built a couple years ago. For birding, with a conventional tripod. I arranged to have them delivered during Winter Storm Diego so that I can’t be blamed for the cloudy weather, it was already here.
