The weather people are telling us that this has been a normal April. However, it seems to have been cloudy nearly every day. We've had about two clear days, and as many clear nights.
I've had the scope out twice here this month for a couple of short runs. The first time was early April, and I had the reflector out. I know I hadn't used it in a while, as I seemed to have forgotten how things move in the eyepiece. That was a very frustrating trip out. The good news from that one was that the rebuilt focuser is as smooth as silk now, with the demon glue grease gone. Then on thursday night, we got some surprise clearing, and I took it out to look at saturn. My wife even came out for that one! She also confirmed that I need to do some work on the mount, the exact quote is "why is this so wiggly?"
With it being close to new moon now, I want to get it out some more and look for galaxies. Alas the cloudy weather, and the fact that complete darkness does not come until after 10:00 is putting a damper on this project. And as we get closer to summer, that later situation does not improve any. The warm weather does allow for work outside on some projects that are to smelly to do inside, like cleaning out the equatorial head of the scope and maybe some wood working projects.
Stay tuned...
