Tag: observatory

Categories
webcams

It was too cloudy to put the Solar Telescope camera…

.It was too cloudy to put the Solar Telescope camera on today. Looking at the Sky, they will not be on tonight either. I had set the Telescope up as best as I could last night, but it was not working as it should. I was having to adjust its position constantly. The idea is that when the Telescope is aligned and had a GPS fix, you are able to select an object in the Sky on a hand controller, last night it was the Moon. By pressing a goto button, it goes automatically to the Moon and tracks it. For some reason it is not tracking as it should. The Telescope is in an Observatory, a couple of hundred yards from the Farm House. We have motorised the Observatory and with the help of a computer in the Observatory, the Telescopes computer and a lot of wiring, we are able to talk to both the computers remotely from a computer in the Farm House. This gives us full control all of the functions that the Telescope has in its computer. The Telescope has a library has over 145,000 objects stored, that you are able to makeup guided tours as well as suggested best of the night tours that can be selected. The problem with me taking that option would mean that I would be continuously having to go to the Observatory to change the lens. I will get some one to make some tours, that need only one lens for each tour. Next month Mars is a must to look at. I will find out more and hopefully with the weather being favourable, we may be able to see it on the webcams.

Of course the weather in the UK does not allow for the Telescope webcams to be on as much as i would like. Now that it is getting dark earlier, I don’t mind starting the Telescope working. In the Summer, by the time you get the Telescope working, it is time to go to bed. I wont leave it going all night until I sort out the tracking problem. If I can do it I will. I don’t like being defeated. Getting as far as we have has been a challenge. We are the first in the World doing Telescope webcams, so we have had no one to take advice from. I have just nagged Telescope House who I purchased the equipment from.

The injured Badger Cub was feeding tonight, I zoomed in on the injury to make sure that it was the one. I could see the scar. I had thought that it had got an infection in the injury and died, but it looked well alive, although its coat looked a bit dull. I should think that it has got over the worse and will live.

Categories
webcams

Sorry but it is going to be a short one…

Sorry, but it is going to be a short one again tonight. When we are haymaking the day goes so quick, that other than making the hay we really don’t do much else. Other things to write in the diary just do not happen.

I cant believe after the rotten summer that we have had, that we are now getting so much warm sunshine. So much so that we may well be able to bale the tomorrow. As the hay is making there is a really good smell with it. It doesn’t always guarantee good hay, but it is a fair indication. There only seems to be one problem area, that is a three acre area that was hit by the flood. The field of five acres is dissected by the stream, although further down from the main flood. I hadn’t expected that the field would have flooded as much as it had, until I saw it and thought about it. What seems to have happened is that a culvert under a lane, that parts the five acre field and another about five and a half a from the main farm got quickly blocked with the streams bed stone, this caused the lane to flood about a hundred metres or more both sides, the soil that had come off of the hill with the rain spread on the grass as mud. When the grass was cut it brought up the soil in the grass, making it very dusty. probably forty bales will be spoilt.

I got the telescope computer back this evening and tried it straight away in the observatory, but unfortunately I could not get a remote connection from it to the farm house. It seems that although the computer did have a problem, it was not the reason for me not being able connect to the observatory. I should think that the wire connection from the farm house to the observatory is the cause. I will try to get another wire put in as quickly for the new moon. It would have been good to have had it working for Sunday, as it is going to be a good clear night for watching a spectacular meteor shower. If you look towards the east, this is the bad part, from about 11pm Sunday to 2.am Monday it should be a good if you have never seen any.

I don’t know if any one else counted, but I am sure that I counted sixteen Badgers feeding at one time tonight. The youngsters, both this years and last, are getting too brave when I take the feed up. I have said before that I don’t want to humanise them. I will make some sort of noise that will make them run back to the sett when I feed them in future.

Categories
webcams

For a few days the Diary is going to be…

For a few days the Diary is going to be very short as I am trying to get the Internet connection working properly from the telescope observatory back to the farmhouse. At the moment it is very intermittent and is not allowing me to control the telescope remotely. As the farm house is at least 150m from the observatory I wont be running back and forth to get it aligned. The problem I should think started after gale force winds last winter, it caused the wires from the observatory to the farm house to sway and eventually sag very low, Branston must have run into them pulling them to the ground. Both Branston and my self were very lucky not to have got electrocuted. All the wires to the observatory are run overhead. There are four wires that are needed to control the telescope webcams, two coaxial wires for transmitting the camera signals, a networking cable to control the computer, that allows me to remotely control the telescope and a mains electricity wire. The mains electricity had not fused when it fell to the ground. I had not noticed the wire was down for over a week when I could not get a connection. In all that time that the wire was down Branston could have trod on it, for sure that would have been to end of Branston. I had rolled the wire up ready for it to be put in position. I had obviously believed that with it being on the ground that it would have blown its fuse.

I managed to get a camera on the nesting Dove last evening. I had so many choices as there are at least six Dove nesting in the area. One had nested by the side of a roll of wire that I use for the camera. To get the camera working I needed more wire and had to move the reel. When moving the reel my hand was within an inch of the Dove who never flinched, just watched every thing that I was doing.

Karen asked the name of the big Horse in the field. It is Arnie for obvious reasons, being that he is 17.3hh. One soppy lovable gentle giant.

Doesn’t look like we will be making hay for a while with the forecasts that I have seen. The forecast for our area today was showers this morning, It poured down none stop for over two hours. I am going to write down what the forecast is each day, so that I make no mistake and see how often they get it wrong. Actually it will be less work if I keep a record of when they get it right.