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.

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.