And Then There Were Three

Last week and over the weekend we had a couple of good nights, so with no current alerts on, Jonathan took the opportunity to complete Shaun Fletcher's training, now there are three people who are capable of operating the setup in the main dome of Kumeu Observatory, we will still be looking to train more members of the Auckland Astronomical Society so that we can ensure that the observatory will never become disused and derelict again.

Speaking about derelict, Jonathan Green also met up with the treasurer of the society Niven Brown on Sunday afternoon to show him the damage to the dome that Steve Hennerley had discovered before he went overseas, basically we have a bit of rot on one side of the dome, probably because the skirting was never replaced and is inadequate to protect the under side of the dome from the elements, David Moorhouse had mentioned this problem to Bill Thomas last time he saw him in the city, Niven took some photos of the damage and will circulate them to the council, so hopefully with the consent of the council we will be able to hire a builder to come fix the problem, we also want to get the dome cleaned up as well seeing as it looks quite grubby with loads of moss and mold on the outside of the dome, it will probably need treating with a chemical wash and perhaps could be re-painted afterwards as well.

< Screen shot of an image of the Trifid Nebula that I'm working on in PixInsight, I'm still learning how to use PixInsight but it's a fantastic program and I can really see why Rolf Wahl Olsen gets such great results using it.

Posted by Jonathan Green