The heat wave is supposed to break today. It was been above 90F for weeks now and was above 100F for several days in a row. The dew point has been in the mid-70’s as well. Hot and humid.

 

I was out to my observatory last Friday (7/28) and Sunday (7/30). On Friday it was very hot and after I got set up I went swimming in the portable above ground pool that Dale and Martha have (whose farm my observatory is on). It was awesome. Clear night, lots of stars, warm as hell, floating in the water while the computer clicks away and gets data for me. After I got out of the pool my friend Tom called and he was going sailing on Lake Minnetonka. I set my dome so the scope would be clear for several hours and hopped in the car to Tom’s house in Deephaven. We got on the boat and sailed around for a couple of hours. It was awesome. Nice breeze, cold beer, sailing in the middle of the night on the hottest day of the summer.

 

Sunday night I jumped in the pool again after I got things going and then set up my tent and slept for 3 hours. It’s pretty nice if I can get a few hours sleep while getting data. Grab a few more when I get home and I am good to go.

 

My CCD camera in my observatory, which is thermoelectrically cooled, only gets down to -7C or so when it is this hot. In the dead of winter I get it down to -45C. You get a lot more thermal noise with the higher temperature but for what I do it doesn’t make much of an appreciable difference.

 

Still looking at GSC 3196-641, which is in the same field as SS Cyg so I’ve been getting data on both in V and Ic. Got two nice 6-hour runs.