Bugs

I learned a few things today.

1. It is NOT everglades season. Not yet. I jumped the gun and got too excited about a cold front that passed the other day. The bugs are still out there. Big time.

2. Before you go to the everglades, check the tide book. Why the tide book? Do you care if it is high or low tide? Not really. But the tide book also tells you the moon phase. You do not want there to be a full moon. The full moon washes out the sky.

3. If you have not used your telescope in a long time, you really should take some time to read the manual. You know, so you remember how it works.

See I totally forgot to do the alignment. OOPS!!!! The alignment is important. What happens is you are supposed to point it to the north. It has a thingie on it that knows when it is level. Now I remembered this.

But where is north? Beats me. What do I look like to you, a compass?

Anyhow I was close to north. Then I turned the thing on. But I FORGOT TO ALIGN IT!! What a goof. I just went right to the good part - selecting stuff to look at. I selected a good standby - the Orion nebula.

So the telescope starts to do its thing. On its own. And when it stops moving it is not pointed at Orion.

Why? Well there was the whole issue with skipping the thee star alignment. And there was the problem that when I turned it on it was not exactly pointing north. I was not sure there north was you see, so I guessed.

This winter started out on such a good note. The first cold front came early. But now it is just a let down. There are still bugs. It is not really super bad, but there are enough to be annoying.

I will try again. Hopefully it will remain cool long enough for there to be less bugs for the next new moon.

And next time I will be ready. Ill remember how to set everything up. It will be cool.