Category Archives: Garden

Holy Smokes!

We’ve decompressed from our Japan trip and things have reached a new normal for us here at Viewpoint. Donna has revised her activity schedule – the break made her realize how hard she had been pushing herself all summer long.

She has since put golf on hold until after the busy winter season here. She also resigned her position as President and Secretary of the Viewpoint Concert Band and bowed out of a tennis committee. She filed for and was granted non-profit corporation status for Viewpoint Good Neighbors, the volunteer organization she founded last fall. As the Executive Director, she still manages the day-to-day activities of organization but has delegated in-person visits to volunteers. Viewpoint Good Neighbors exists to assist mostly elderly members of the community that don’t have relatives nearby to help them. Good Neighbors provides limited meal service, household help and also can run errands for them and provide companionship. It’s a worthy endeavor and is funded through donations from others in the community. She still plays in the tennis league and also plays clarinet in the band.

At the beginning of November, I put a pork shoulder on the Traeger smoker/grill to make pulled pork. I was watching football in the Arizona room as the Traeger went about smoking the pork. I checked on it from time to time to make sure the temperature was in range and pellets were feeding. At one point, I looked out the glass slider and the carport was filled with smoke. I couldn’t even see the street!

I ran outside and found a disaster in the making. Something happened, either a pellet feed problem or a grease fire – flames were coming out of the grill vent and the pit temperature skyrocketed above 450 degrees. I used a squirt bottle filled with water to extinguish the flames and shut the unit down. Meanwhile a couple appeared through the smoke – they were driving by and thought our house was on fire.

After I had things calmed down, I restarted the Traeger and observed the pellet feed. It seemed to be working fine, but there was noise coming from the auger that feeds the pellets. The pork shoulder came out of the mess just fine and made a good batch of pulled pork. I started troubleshooting the Traeger and found the source of the noise to be the fan on the auger motor. There are two fans on the Traeger, one fans the fire pot to keep the pellets burning hot, the other cools the auger motor as it operates at high current and high load. That’s where the noise came from. A replacement auger motor (the fan is integrated with the drive motor) costs less than $30. The problem for me was the disassembly required to access the auger motor. It would take more time and effort than I was willing to do.

After nine years of reliable service, I decided to retire the Traeger. Donna posted it on her “Buy Nothing” Facebook group with a description of what was needed to bring it back to normal service. Several people wanted it. Donna ended up giving it to a nice young couple that had time to fix it and could afford to pay for a new motor, but couldn’t afford to buy a Traeger.

Now I needed a new smoker/grill. I did some research and found that technology had marched on since I purchased the Traeger. The biggest advancement came in the form of the controller that regulates the unit’s temperature. Older pellet smokers used a relatively crude method of regulation that used a duty cycle for control. The duty cycle selected set a certain amount of time the auger would turn (the duty part of the cycle) and a period of rest with no pellets fed. This duty cycle was adjustable to within a small range for each temperture setting in the upgraded controller I installed on the Traeger.

Newer, quality units use what engineers call a PID controller. This uses more sophisticated software to regulate the pit temperature. PID is an acronym for three algorithms used for control – Proportional, Integral and Derivative. This allows for much more precise control than duty cycle operation and the software is an adaption of that used in industrial and agricultural applications.

I ended up choosing a wood pellet smoker/grill made by Z Grills. This company originally made smoker/grills for other brands – in fact they made some of Traeger’s grills until around 2015. In 2017, they started making grills and distributing them under their own brand. Their PID software is advanced and regulates the temperature precisely by controlling the pellet feed to the burn pot and also varying the fan speed blowing air through the burn pot. It also incorporates two temperature probes that can be inserted into the meat to determine the internal temperature of the meat without opening the grill.

It came in a surprisingly compact box. Some assembly was required. I saw where people online claimed anywhere from one to three hours of assembly time. I figured I should be able to do it in two hours. I met that goal with some assistance at one point from Donna. The instructions warn that two people are needed for some steps. I only needed Donna’s help when I installed the legs.

Z Grill in operation with temperature probes in use

I smoked a spatchcocked 11-pound turkey for Thanksgiving. I had a temperature probe in the meaty part of a thigh (P1) and another in the center of the breast (P2). I had already broken the unit in with the initial burn-in and a trial run with a spatchcock chicken. I did something new to me for the chicken and the turkey. I used a syringe to inject melted, unsalted butter into the breasts and thighs before smoking them. The outcome was delicious. After about 20 minutes of settling time after start up, the temperature remained true to the setting with only an occasional variation of just five degrees. Excellent performance!

Near the end of the turkey cook, I turned it up to 375 degrees to crisp the skin. I took it off the grill when the breast read 163 degrees and the thigh was at about 185. I let the turkey rest for half an hour before I sliced it.

Donna made dinner plates for our next-door neighbors, Allen and Lois. They are in their mid-80s and Allen needs a knee replacement. He has a lot of trouble getting around and it’s been hard on Lois. She also made two plates for a Viewpoint Good Neighbors volunteer who spent the entire summer in the hospital fighting for her life. She and her husband greatly appreciated it! Viewpoint Good Neighbors delivered a total of 26 home- cooked meals to residents who might not otherwise had a Thanksgiving meal. Altogether, it was a very good Thanksgiving.

Before Thanksgiving, I got my rating with the Viewpoint Tennis Club. I wanted to play in league matches, but before you can join a team in the league, you need to have an official rating. This is done through arranged play of games observed by a professional tennis coach from outside of the park. I needed a minimum of a 2.5 rating to qualify for men’s league. I haven’t been playing tennis for very long – my first game was in April after four months of coaching and practice drills. I’m happy to report I was rated at 2.5. Whew! So, now I’m on the Viewpoint Men’s 2.5 Tennis Team and we play weekly matches in the East Valley Senior Tennis League (EVSTL). This has me committed to play three times per week – a team practice day of 90 minutes, a round robin day with 90 minutes of play and a EVSTL match either here at our courts or away at another tennis club participating in the league. Donna plays in the women’s 3.0 league. I’m also an official EVSTL score keeper for matches played here when my schedule allows.

Another thing I’ve taken up again post-Japan is guitar practice. I hadn’t picked up my guitars in many months. I just got away from it for some reason. It took a little while to build up callous on my fingertips and regain the dexterity, but I’m having fun again.

My guitars, amps and cabinets corner in the Arizona room

Donna is back to regular clarinet practice as we’re back in the concert band season.

Although I was unsuccessful in my search for Japanese straight razors in Japan, I’ve managed to acquire a few through auction sites and from members of the Badger and Blade forum. The stones I bought from Morihei are proving to be very good for finishing the edge on a razor.

My latest acquisition is the SanKan pictured above on the Morihei Oozuku mizu asagi stone. Japanese razor brands can be interesting. In the 1950s through the 1970s, many brands used names “borrowed” from German makers as German razors were highly regarded. I have one with a German name – Sonnal. The SanKan name is interesting – san (pronounced sahn) is Japanese for the number three. On the backside of the tang on this razor is a trademark stamping with three crowns arranged in a triangular fashion. The word okan means crowns in Japanese. So, SanKan seems to be these two words joined without the “O.” The kapton tape on the spine in the photo is there for protection while honing.

I started offering a knife sharpening service for people here at Viewpoint and have had several takers. I charge $5 for one knife, three or more are $4 each. I enjoy sharpening and it keeps me proficient. My knives and razors hold their edges really well and don’t need to be sharpened all that often. Some of the knives brought here for sharpening are completely dull or even chipped and damaged. I bought a couple of coarser stones to take care of these problem knives and it’s working out well. I don’t call a knife finished unless it will slice through an unsupported magazine page without catching and cleanly make thin slices through a tomato.

Donna has her raised garden bed replanted after harvesting the butternut squash that grew in late summer/fall. She’s planted cold weather crops – broccoli, spinach, cabbage, fennel, cilantro and dill. We went to the Arizona Worm Farm where she bought the starts and I bought 300 more worms to restock the bed. The hot, dry summer was hard on the worm population so I wanted to jump start the colony instead of waiting several weeks for them to re-populate.

We’ve had daily highs from the mid-70s to low 80s with one surprise rain squall last Thursday night. Friday morning I took Donna to the airport. She flew to San Diego for the weekend and her sister, Linda also flew in from Florida to celebrate their mother’s birthday. Donna’s been going to San Diego one weekend each month to visit her mom.

The weather ahead looks slighly cooler – lower 70s with some cloud cover. We’ll see if it includes precipitation. I think that just about catches up with all we’re doing. I’ll close with a dinner plate Donna made with an excellent pork chop with green beans and a cheesy potato pancake made with leftover mashed potatoes from Thanksgiving.

Sticker Shock

I received quite a shock in the mail a couple of weeks ago. It was my insurance renewal notice for our Jeep Compass. The rate for the same coverage on a car that’s a year older and depreciating was more than double – that’s right, my premium was more than double the cost of the previous year.

I talked to my insurance agent about this and she had some shocking stories to tell. The insurance market is in turmoil. She’s been in the business for over 30 years and she’s never experienced a market like the current conditions. She says a number of factors are involved – I think many of these factors were avoidable.

She cited California and New York as major influences in the cost of insurance. California has had huge claims from wildfires and they regulate the cost of insurance. Many companies have quit writing new policies or renewals in California and New York due to over-regulation. When the government doesn’t allow a free market, unintended consequences can rule. Companies leaving the huge California and New York markets has a ripple effect on the rest of us.

Companies that continue to operate in California and New York have to underwrite policies for less than their actuaries calculate. They spread that loss to others – in this case, my current insurance through Progressive raises the cost for everyone else to cover their losses in states like California and New York. In essence, I’m subsidizing California policies.

Another factor we face in Arizona is the double-edged sword of under-insured/uninsured policy requirements. Under-insured/uninsured coverage is a state requirement here. Many of the collision claims here involve uninsured motorists. The flood of illegal immigration puts many unlicensed, uninsured motorists on the road. So, the state requires me to have insurance coverage to account for that. Again, I’m forced to subsidize their lack of responsibility. If your policy is due for renewal soon, be prepared for a cost increase. End of rant.

Awhile back, Donna and I decided to buy whole chickens which I then broke down into eight or 10 pieces. We liked the quality of whole chickens better than the pre-packaged breasts we found in stores. I would break down the chicken and Donna would vacuum seal pieces and freeze them for later consumption. Somehow, over the last year or so we got out of that habit. It bit us when Donna made a dish with pre-packaged chicken breasts that turned out to be dry and stringy. It had nothing to do with her recipe or cooking skill – it was not a good quality product.

So I’m back into the chicken butchery business. I break down a chicken into two breasts and tenders, two thighs, two drumsticks and two wings which I sometimes cut into four pieces. We rediscovered why we were doing this in the past.

To break down the chicken, I use a Japanese knife called a honesuki which is designed precisely for this task. A honesuki was one of the first Japanese knives I bought. I’ve never liked the Misono brand Swedish steel honesuki I bought all that much. It was made in the traditional Japanese way with the blade sharpened to an offset bevel – in this case a 70/30 grind. I couldn’t keep a sharp edge on it and struggled to maintain the 70/30 edge.

I found a good deal on a honesuki made in Sanjo, Japan with a western 50/50 bevel grind. I like Sanjo knives in general. Sanjo is a historic blade- and tool-making district. Many of the bladesmiths there are small operators with one man doing the entire knifemaking process. There is a factory there called Tadafusa which employs a number of blacksmiths and sharpeners, but most of the knife makers there are run by only a few employees or a single person. The honesuki I bought is typical san-mai (literally translates as three-layer) construction where the hard shirogami #2 carbon steel core is sandwiched between layers of softer stainless steel. I broke down two chickens with this blade and it glided right through all of the joints to separate the chicken parts. Love it!

Most of the meal prep work I do for Donna involves cutting vegetables. I bought another Japanese knife from Teruyasu Fujiwara called a nakiri. Nakiris are typically made with a rectangular blade and have a slight belly curvature. They are specifically designed for cutting vegetables and the flat edge profile makes it cut cleanly through a vegetable without leaving what’s called an accordion – that’s when the vegetable isn’t fully separated and the bottom layer of the vegetable stays connected together. It’s annoying.

I keep our kitchen knives sharp by free-hand sharpening on Japanese water stones. These are whetstones that either need to be soaked in water before use or in some case can be used with just a splash of water to lubricate and clean the surface. I have a number of synthetic stones in various grits for this task.

Traditional Japanese stones were mined for centuries and are natural stones. This can lead to another rabbit hole where there are enthusiasts looking for stones with seemingly magical properties. This can lead to an expensive journey through stones which can be collectable as many of the old mines have been shut down for years. Enthusiasts sometimes spend hundreds of dollars for a single stone!

Recently I’ve been hearing about natural stones being mined in Indonesia. There are a couple of groups there trying to open up an export market for these sharpening stones. I watch a couple of YouTube videos describing them. I fell for it and bought an Indonesian natural whetstone. It was inexpensive – they haven’t developed much of a following or market yet, so they are dirt cheap. The stone I bought is hard and fairly fine grain. I used it to finish the edge on my honesuki and also on a Sanjo slicer (called a sujihiki). It left a razor-sharp edge.

You can see this thing is a brick – I think it’s a lifetime whetstone.

I put my knives to good use recently and made my famous Japanese fried rice.

Donna grilled shrimp and served it over a cup of fried rice.

Another recent meal was pork tenderloin served with chipotle maple sauce with garlic smashed potato and fresh broccoli from our garden on the side. That’s a winner!

Another fine dinner was a plate of skillet chicken parmesan served with gnocci and steamed spinach and fresh basil from our garden.

Last night, we had our friends, Chuck and Sue Lines and Dick and Roxy Zarowny over for Donna’s annual St. Patrick’s dinner. We had it a few days early as Donna has a Viewpoint Concert Band performance on Sunday evening. She made all the traditional Irish foods – corned beef, cabbage and carrots, champ potatoes and Irish soda bread. Sue brought an appetizer and Roxy supplied Key lime pie for dessert. I neglected to take any photos as we chatted all evening.

There’s a big project underway here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. A company called Airebeam has been contracted to install fiber-optic cabling and internet service for the park. In a couple of months we should have access to blazing fast (up to 750Mbps) internet and video streaming – it will be great!

Donna competed in a tennis tournament a couple of weeks ago. I attended as an official scorekeeper – I’m a league scorekeeper for the East Valley Senior Tennis League. The league sanctions competition for seniors from various 55+ parks and neighborhoods in our area. Donna and her tennis partner, Linda Rice, won their first match but were eliminated in a close second-round match two days later.

The weather has been very pleasant over the past couple of weeks with daily highs in the mid-to-upper 70s. We had clouds roll in last night and will have some rain today before the sunshine returns again tomorrow. The rest of the month is forecast to have daily highs back in the mid-to-upper 70s.

17 Years and Counting

Today is a Mexican holiday – Cinco de Mayo. The fifth of May has significance for Donna and me – we were married on the shore of Watson Lake at Watson Lake State Park near Prescott, Arizona on May 5, 2006. Seventeen years and seems like it wasn’t that long ago. I haven’t regretted that day for a moment.

By the end of April, things really started winding down here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. Most of the visitors from Canada are gone. Snowbirds from the northern states have left or will be leaving soon. There are only enough pickleballers now to have three or four games going at a time.

In April, Donna was away for a week as she traveled back to Vermont to visit her parents. It was just me and Ozark fending for ourselves. Donna planted lots of flowers and also has the vegetable garden which needed tending. She worried about finding dead or dying plants when she returned. Not to worry – I kept everything alive and thriving.

I mentioned in a previous post that we’re in galaxy season for astronomy now. I went up to the Weaver’s Needle Viewpoint several times to capture a few galaxies. I’m learning how to operate my Losmandy mount – as with all new astronomy equipment, there’s a learning curve. It took me a couple of months to get my previous Sky-Watcher mount working well, it only took a few attempts to get the Losmandy to work properly – there was one software glitch and I had to install new firmware for that. I had a few instances of operator error, but now I have it down to a routine.

The Losmandy handles the AT 115EDT like it’s nothing. That scope had my Sky-Watcher HEQ5 on the limit. Larger refractors can be demanding on mounts. They have longer polar moments of inertia due to the fact that for one thing, they can be long and they carry most of their weight on the ends. The objective lens is heavy with two or three glass elements. On the opposite end of the ‘scope, there is a diagonal with a mirror or prism and an eyepiece for observing or a camera and filter drawer for astrophotography.

My new APM 140/980 is larger than the AT 115EDT. The 115 has an objective lens with a diameter of 115mm, about 4.5 inches. The APM 140/980 has an objective lens with a diameter of 140mm, about 5.5 inches. The 115 is a triplet, meaning it has three elements to the objective lens cell. Three separate elements allow the designer a lot of freedom to correct aberations. The APM is a doublet, two elements in the lens cell. The APM doublet utilizes super-low dispersion glass from Ohara (Japan) called FPL53. This special crystal allows excellent chromatic aberation correction.

APM 140/980 on the Losmandy GM811 mount at Wever’s Needle Viewpoint

I made two trips to the viewpoint in April to image a galaxy called Bode’s Galaxy (M81). Americans tend to pronounce it as boads, but it’s actually named after a German astronomer named Johann Bode who discovered it in 1774. Germans pronounce words that end in “e” with an “ah” sound, and silent letters are rare in the German language. So it’s really pronounced like “bodahs” galaxy. It’s in the constellation Ursa Major (Greater Bear). It’s relatively close to our galaxy at 12 million light years from here. It’s a popular target for astrophotography due to its large size and brightness.

You might have noticed that I often put an alpha-numeric tag with the images. These are catalog numbers for celestial objects. The “M” numbers are from a catalog created by a French astronomer named Charles Messier. The objects he cataloged all have a “Messier” or “M” number. He published his catalog of 110 objects in 1774. There are other catalogs like the NGC (New General Catalog).

After imaging Bode’s Galaxy, I made three trips back to capture the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51). The Whirlpool Galaxy is listed as 31 million light years from earth on the NASA website although Wikipedia says it’s 23 million light years away. I believe NASA before I’ll quote an anonymous Wikipedia post. The Whirlpool Galaxy is in the constellation Canes Venatici (Hunting Dogs). I had a total of 177 exposures which stacked for a total integration time of nearly four hours. This much data allowed a nice image with good detail and some color.

The bright ball of light that appears to be hanging from one of the Whirlpool’s spiral arms is another galaxy slightly farther away called NGC5195. If you look closely, you can see a small vertical edge-on galaxy far away above and to the right of NGC5195. There’s another edge-on galaxy in the lower-left corner of the photo.

While Donna was away, my diet suffered as I didn’t put a lot of effort into cooking. Donna feeds me well when she’s here and I’m spoiled. Here are a few plates. First we have our Easter dinner of spiral ham, roasted cauliflower with parmesan-panko crumble and green beans with sliced almonds.

Next, we have a new recipe that was quick and easy to prepare – ginger-garlic shrimp with coconut milk.

Then we have another new recipe for shoyu chicken with a soy ginger-garlic sauce.

Tonight we’ll have our traditional anniversary dinner – Mexican food at Baja Joe’s where they specialize in Sinaloa seafood.

The weather has been pleasant after a short warm spell. The last week has had highs between the low 80s and low 90s. The forecast calls for more of the same for the next couple of weeks. On the 22nd, we’ll head down to Tucson for a housesitting assignment. It’s a dark-sky area and I look forward to setting up my telescope there.

Special Deliveries

It’s that time of year again. No, I’m not talking about April Fools’ Day – although today is the day for gags. I’m talking about spring, which for me means allergies. A couple of weeks ago the citrus trees here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort were blooming. The fragrance of the orange tree in front of our place was pleasant, but it made my eyes itch and water.

Now, everything is flowering. I saw a photo on Facebook this morning posted by our friend, Dave Hobden, of the cactus in his yard blooming. I’ve been taking allergy medicine daily this week. I’m also recovering from another visit to the dermatologist.

I had a few pre-cancer keratosis spots taken care of and a biopsy of a spot near my right eye. This turned out to be squamous cell carcinoma. Last Tuesday I had Mohs surgery to remove the lesion. It turned out to be about a five-hour affair. It didn’t take long for the surgeon to cut away the tissue. The tissue removed has to be examined by a pathologist to ensure that a clear margin is evident. If there’s no clear margin, they make another cut.

In my case, there was a hold-up on the pathology results. Instead of the hour to hour and half I was told to expect, it took two and half hours to get the report. It was clear, so they took me back into an exam room to have the incision closed up. There was another delay as the surgeon had to finish up another surgery first. It was another hour of waiting in small exam room. Good thing I brought my Kindle. I’ll go back to the dermatologist office on Tuesday morning for follow-up and have the stitches removed.

I mentioned our visit with my youngest daughter, Shauna, and her family in my last post. I also mentioned plans to go out for sushi with my oldest daughter, Alana, and her husband, Kevin. It turned out that my middle daughter, Jamie, and her partner, Francisco, were able to join us as well. We had a great evening. It was nice to visit with all three of my daughters that week.

The two weeks since my last post have been fairly routine. The Viewpoint Concert Band had their final performance of the season on Sunday, March 19th. They had a good crowd in the ballroom and most of the people we talked to afterward said they thought it was the best performance they had heard from the band. I think the selection of the music performed was the reason for all of the positive feedback.

Now that the last band concert of the season is behind her, Donna’s schedule has freed up about 10 hours per week. That’s how much time she devoted to practice on her own and rehearsals with the band. But she doesn’t often operate with free time on her calendar. Not only is she president of the board for the band, she’s now secretary of the Viewpoint Tennis Club. Her golf league ended their season, but she’s maintaining a standing tee-time with friends on Tuesday mornings. She’s also putting more time into gardening.

We had our outreach event with the East Valley Astronomy Club (EVAC) here on March 22nd. I arranged the event with one of the EVAC activity coordinators, Claude, and the events director here at Viewpoint. The topsy-turvy weather we’ve had this winter didn’t exactly cooperate. We had rain in the morning and some clouds lingered in the afternoon/evening. Temperatures were on the cool side – the high was only 61 and it dropped into the low 50s after sunset. We had a fairly good turn-out in spite of the conditions. We had five club members set up their gear and I’m guessing about 40 people came out to see planets and stars. I’m not really sure of the number of people – I was busy and only saw those that came by my rig.

Last Saturday, FedEx dropped off four boxes for me. They came from Hollywood General Machining – it was my new Losmandy GM811 mount!

I got busy and had it assembled in no time.

This mount has a much higher payload capacity than my SkyWatcher HEQ5 had. There’s nothing wrong with the HEQ5, but I wanted the higher capacity for the AT115EDT, which put the HEQ5 at its limit. With GM811, I can go much larger with my astrophotography gear without straining the mount. It’s also easier to disassemble and move the GM811 and it sets up quickly. I’m pretty excited by the new mount. My HEQ5 was sold to my astronomy buddy, Marty, and he was excited enough to pick it up Saturday afternoon.

A week ago Friday, I started imaging another nebula called the Tadpoles Nebula. I wanted to capture more data before finalizing the image. I planned to continue shooting it from the backyard with my new mount, but I had a problem. I ordered an iPolar scope with the mount to use for polar alignment. Polar alignment is the first step for calibrating a German Equatorial Mount. I had to wait until Monday to contact Losmandy about the missing optional equipment. They sent it out with an apology Monday afternoon.

I tried to attain polar alignment with software to start calibrating, but I wasn’t sucessful Tuesday night. I think I know where I went wrong, but cloudy nights have prevented me from trying again. I was hoping to have the iPolar scope by now, but hit anothe snag. It was addressed improperly – they labeled it 870 E University Drive instead of 8700 E University Drive. It was sent back to California and they will re-label it and send it back to me. Meanwhile, I’m planning to try the software-based polar alignment again tonight, so I can finish capturing the nebula.

When I came home from the dermatologist on Tuesday, I found a package from Germany that UPS dropped off. It came from Markus Ludes at APM Telescopes in Sulzbach, Germany. I ordered an APM Super ED 140/980 refractor. This is a large refractor with an objective lens diameter of 140mm (5.5 inches) and a focal length of 980mm (38.6 inches). The focal ratio therefore is F/7 – focal ratio is the focal length divided by the aperture diameter and is used to determine certain lens characteristics by photographers.

APM Super ED 140/980 – tape measure for reference

APM Super ED 140/980 stored on top of kitchen cabinet – this thing is a monster of a ‘scope

Although I had to deal with exchange rates, import duty and customs broker fees, it was about $200 cheaper for me to import the ‘scope from Germany than to buy from the US distributor. I also ordered an APM-Riccardi field flattener with the ‘scope. This is an accessory that’s only used for astrophotography – it’s not needed for visual use. I have high-quality field flatteners on all three of my refractors. This one, designed by Massimo Riccardi is very highly regarded. It’s attached to rear of the ‘scope in the photos above.

I wouldn’t have considered this telescope if I didn’t have the Losmandy mount. It would overload my old mount. The mount is probably the most important piece of astronomy equipment, especially for astrophotography. It’s the foundation for everything else.

All of the activities are winding down here at Viewpoint. The snowbirds are due to migrate back north. Many of the Canadian visitors have already left. By the end of this month, at least 60% of the residents will have gone. It’s too bad, because the weather forecast is finally looking good. Other than a couple of days under 70 degrees, we should be in the upper 70s to mid-80s for the rest of the month.

Irish for a Day

We’ve come through one of the coldest, wettest winters in memory here in Arizona. Donna’s vegetable garden seemed almost dormant at times as the vegetables endured cold nights. Things finally took off near the end of February and she harvested earlier this month.

Snow on the Superstition Mountains, March 2nd

She replanted for her second crop, which we expect will grow much faster as we are enjoying warmer weather and longer days.

Donna’s second planting in her raised vegetable garden bed

She relocated the worm bin when she replanted. The worms are thriving and continue to multiply. The same goes for my second worm colony.

The highlight of the year came on Wednesday, March 15th, when my youngest daughter, Shauna and her husband Gabe came to visit from Bermuda. Of course they had our youngest granddaughter Petra in tow. We picked them up at the airport and they visited while we had snacks and a drink. We met our granddaughter for the first time. We hadn’t visited Bermuda since the COVID lockdown.

Later, I dropped them off at a nearby AirBnb. On Thursday morning, I picked them up again and we drove to west Mesa where Shauna had rented a car through Turo. She picked up a new VW Taos compact SUV. She said the car felt big to her – Bermuda doesn’t have many (any?) full-size cars. Everything is sub-compact there. It’s an island after all with narrow roads.

We came back to Viewpoint and gave them a tour of the grounds. We finished the tour at Fat Willy’s where we enjoyed lunch on the patio. Lucky for us, we claimed a table next to a propane heater – it was a bit chilly with the breeze. I mentioned the unusually cool weather – when they arrived on Wednesday, it was raining and we had a high of just 65 degrees. Thursday was only slightly warmer with a high of 69 degrees.

Donna, Petra and me by the golf course behind Fat Willy’s

Thursday afternoon, they headed west to visit with Shauna’s mother and stepfather in Wickenburg. My oldest daughter Alana and her husband Kevin were already there. They flew down from Washington to meet up with Shauna and Gabe.

Alana and Kevin will come here this afternoon and we’re planning to go out for sushi tonight. Shauna and family will come back to Scottsdale on Monday. They’re meeting friends and will attend a spring training MLB game Monday night. Donna and I will babysit Petra while they’re at the game.

I need to shift gears now and discuss my latest passion – astronomy and, more specifically, astrophotography. When the astronomy bug bit, I spent the first month or so looking at the moon and planets visually through my telescope. Then I decided I wanted to capture the images, not just gaze through an eyepiece. I started with the easiest target – the moon. Then I spent about three months working on Jupiter and Saturn.

Once I had the planetary imaging techniques figured out, I wanted to try my hand at deep sky objects (DSO). I don’t mean to imply that I mastered planetary imaging – far from it. But here’s the thing. Astronomy has seasons – who knew? We are past the optimum time for imaging planets now. The moon is available year ’round except for about a week or so out of every four weeks when it crosses the sky during daylight hours.

The winter is the time of year when nebula imaging hits its stride. Nebulae generally are invisible to the naked eye, but if you know where to point your telescope, they can be found and images can be recorded. The difficulty arises from the distance involved and the dim light they produce.

Our eyes see in real time – that is, whatever photons strike the rods and cones in our eyes are immediately transferred to our brain. A sensor in a digital camera can be used that way or it can be exposed to a particular light source for a longer time and accumulate the light photons, gradually making the resultant image brighter up to a point. It gets tricky when we are talking about deep sky objects that have a wide spectrum of colors and brightness.

Keeping the camera sensor on point for long periods of time requires accurate tracking. The earth is in constant motion. As it rotates, the celestial bodies appear to move across the sky. Modern astrophotography utilizes powerful software and carefully designed telescope mounts to track the object we want to capture.

There’s also the fact that the earth revolves around the sun. Remember, I said astronomy has seasons? That’s why. As the earth reaches different points in the elliptical path around the sun, different parts of our solar system and the universe are in view. The second quarter of the year is known as galaxy season. The earth reaches a point where most of the Milky Way is no longer visible in the night sky, opening up paths to distant galaxies. The summer is planet season. Then we return to nebula time.

Astrophotography, especially DSO astrophotography, is a very difficult hobby. It’s probably one of the most challenging hobbies I’ve encountered. Having said that, I love it. I’m learning so much. There are so many decisions regarding gear, software and which objects to target. There are no absolutes – that is, there’s more than one way to approach the hobby. An inexperienced amateur astronomer will require a few years to really grasp what they need and what works best for them.

My gear is evolving and I found that I need different software for DSO than what I needed for planetary imaging. Like I said, there’s much to learn. I’ve taken up the DSO challenge and I’ve captured a few objects. My first was late in January when I shot an image of the Andromeda Galaxy. In hindsight, it was a marginal effort. I then went after the Pleiades star cluster. I made some improvements there after a few attempts.

At the end of February I tried to capture the Orion Nebula and was moderately successful.

This led me to the Horsehead Nebula.

My final version of the Horsehead came from two sessions. First on March 3rd, I captured 46 sub-exposures of 120 seconds each from our backyard here at Viewpoint. Then, on March 12th, I captured another 44 subs of of 90 seconds each from darker skies at the Weaver’s Needle Viewpoint. I learned how to combine the data collected from the two sessions in AstroPixelProcessor and the result is the image above.

My latest attempt came from our backyard and it’s the Rosette Nebula.

The Rosette Nebula is 5,200 light years away from earth. It’s in the constellation Orion as are the Horsehead and of course the Orion Nebula.

I’ve arranged an outreach event next week for our astronomy club, East Valley Astronomy Club, here at Viewpoint. Members of the club will show up on Wednesday evening and I’ve secured permission to set up on the ball field at the north end of the Viewpoint complex. We’re inviting people to come out and look at the sky through our telescopes.

Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day. Of course, everyone in the park was Irish for a day. I cleaned up Midget-San – it’s amazing how much dust finds its way under the car cover. I’ve had its battery on a float charger and the gas in the tank was stabilized, so I was confident about it running after spending many months stored on jack stands.

It fired up without any issues! We joined the St. Patrick’s Day parade in it. Donna threw candy to the people lining the streets of Viewpoint and made sure she found kids to toss the candy to. It was fun.

Donna talking with a neighbor, getting ready to join the parade in Midget-San

There was a car show after the parade. I didn’t enter Midget-San because I didn’t want to commit to hanging around all day. I’ve done the car show thing with my old Corvettes in the past and I’m not up to entering anymore. But I like to look around!

Last night, our friends Chuck and Sue Lines came over and joined us for happy hour and dinner. Donna made her usual traditional St. Patrick’s Day dinner of corned beef, cabbage and carrots, champ potatoes and Irish soda bread. And Sue brought a grasshopper pie she made. We had a great time – good food and conversation with good friends. It doesn’t get any better.

As always, Donna keeps fresh cooked, nutritious, delicious meals on our dinner table. Here are few examples from the last couple of weeks. I’ll start with a batch of grilled chicken with tomatoes and corn.

For another meal, she prepared braised chicken thighs and peppers over creamy polenta.

Braised chick thighs and peppers over creamy polenta

The next dish was very tasty. It’s garlic butter flank steak pan fried with baby potatoes and fresh herbs. Yummy!

Flank steak with baby potatoes and broccoli on the side

The weather has been much better in the last week, but it looks like we might have a wet, cold snap for a couple of days next week. I hope Wednesday is fair for the event with the astronomy club.

Flying The Koop

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