Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Technobabble

Imbolc – 2024

Imbolc Cross-Quarter Day

Celtic Feast today: Irish Beef Stew with Soda Bread. The stew had low-carb vegetables (i.e. Turnips, not Potatoes, Butternut Squash, not yams, etc.). The Soda Bread was made with Keto-friendly ingredients. The feast was delicious and served with an Irish Coffee on a cool, windy day. Click on the image to open in the image viewer.

About Imbolc:

Celts celebrated Imbolc as the beginning of Spring. Imbolc corresponds more or less to Groundhog Day in the USA, February 2, when tradition has it that if a sleepy groundhog creeping out of its burrow at dawn sees its shadow, there are 6 more weeks of winter. (If not, we surmise, only 42 days remain.) Christians celebrate this holiday as St. Brigid’s Day.

Spam Filter

When we upgraded this blog to later versions of WordPress a couple of years back, we also upgraded our Spam Filter to Askimet. The package does a pretty good job of filtering spam while allowing normal comments. Thus far, (since the upgrade) Askimet has stopped over nineteen thousand spams. I note that most of the spam seems to be trying to sell pharmaceuticals. There are also some Russian-language spams and a few others promoting p0rn and such. Fortunately, none of that seems to get through.

04 Feb 2024 by Blogosphere Food & Dining Holidays Retirement Technobabble

Day of Rest and Dining

We’re still in the RV Park here in Canyon, TX doing as we said yesterday, that is relaxing and dining. We got up leisurely at around 9:30 AM local time (7:30 AZ time) and spent the day doing the routine with the dogs and getting in a shower for both of us.

The only real work effort was to get out the Grill and Propane bottle and set it up. The other work was done by Damsel to get the chicken ready to grill and prepare the salad.

Image: BBQ Chicken Roasting in the Grill Box

Image: Chicken and Dinner Salad, Served

After dinner, we took the dogs for a walk; when they had done their business, they went back in the motorhome and we continued our walk around the park. This evening, thanks to the on-board satellite TV system, we’re watching some baseball games; thanks to my new smartphone, we’re getting a 5G connection on our computers through the shared Wi-Fi feature. Life and retirement is good.

16 Oct 2023 by Food & Dining Notions Retirement Technobabble Travel Wanderlust

Annular Solar Eclipse Day

Above, first order of camping business is to show the RV parked at the American RV Park taken after the day’s festivities. This is the third time we’ve camped at this particular park – once in 2017 and again in 2019.

Now, in 2023, we’re back again to witness one of God’s spectacles, to wit, the great annular solar eclipse of 2023. Without going into a lot of detail, this is an image of the annularity taken by Damsel this morning at 10:37 local time.

Click on either image to enlarge.

Tomorrow, we will be headed to the Texas Panhandle.

14 Oct 2023 by Astronomy Retirement Technobabble Wanderlust

Amateur Radio Field Day

I took a break from our usual Saturday activities at home to visit with the Hassayampa Amateur Radio Klub at their Field Day site in the Garcia Schoolhouse near Old Downtown Wickenburg.

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) Field Day is an annual event in which amateur radio clubs and individual amateurs can participate to demonstrate their emergency communications capabilities.

I took my camera and got a few shots of the operation; there were three stations working in the schoolhouse. The first station seen in the (clickable) image below is the CW station, or communications via Morse Code. I am surprised that having been off the air for a while that I could still copy the Morse callsigns and text in my head as I listened.

The next station seen below is a digital modes station; there are several digital modes available and they all work to transmit text or possibly images via a computer interface.

The third and final station is a voice mode station that probably is using a popular voice mode called Single Sideband (SSB).

All of the stations had a computer on the side to perform the logging necessary for the contacts made. Logs are submitted to the ARRL which issues awards to contest winners in the various categories.

I have to admit that I thought about getting back on the air, but some matters related to home repair will have to take precedence. More on that situation at another time.

24 Jun 2023 by Arizona Notions Technobabble

Solar Astrophotography

In anticipation of the Annular Solar Eclipse on October 14, 2023, I got out the Canon SL1 camera and associated accessories to photograph the solar disk. I used the Canon EF 100-400mm lens along with a Thousand Oaks Optical threaded SolarLite® filter to get the (clickable) image above. I had to experiment with the camera settings to get the image and further had to adjust it using a photo processing app.

The setup resolved the solar disk and a couple or three sunspots currently visible; the two larger sunspots visible are 3297 and below that 3294. Those numbers are according to SpaceWeather.com.

As I mentioned above, I had to experiment with the camera settings a bit. Using the camera’s Programmed (P) setting, the images were overexposed. I switched to the shutter speed priority setting and tried several exposure times from 1/1000 second, 1/2000 second, and 1/4000 second. The latter, which is the fastest shutter speed on the camera, captured enough of the details needed to produce the image seen above and will certainly be good enough for the annular eclipse. For the total eclipse in April of 2024, it will be necessary to remove the attenuating filter during totality in order to capture the details of the solar limb and the spectacular appearance of the solar corona.

06 May 2023 by Astronomy Notions Photography Retirement Something Shiny Technobabble

Solar Ephemeris Back On-Line

Solar Ephemeris from the Wandering Minstrel Sidebar — March 24, 2018

Remember the Solar Ephemeris sidebar widget from the old Wandering Minstrel blog theme? The widget gave daily information about the sun cycle: you know, daybreak, sunrise, sunset and so forth. Well, I have it back on-line in the form of a sidebar link to a dedicated page that has the old widget code embedded in it.

I had some problems with making it work with the newer versions of the PHP server-side software that the ISP uses. There were some minor, but show-stopping changes to the software that killed the Ephemeris code that ran on the old Minstrel site. I spent a couple of hours debugging the code yesterday and now have the prototype running again in the “Solar Ephemeris” page. Click on the link or select the page from the sidebar. Disclaimer: it’s still a work in progress and is subject to formatting changes.

One of these days, I might start on an interactive widget where users can put in their own geographical coordinates to see the sun’s daily times for their location.

06 Jan 2023 by Astronomy Environment Notions Technobabble

Eclipse Countdown Update

In anticipation of a second solar eclipse that we may travel to observe, I updated the Eclipse Countdown item in the Featured Pages in the right sidebar (or below on your smartphone) to include a countdown to the next American total solar eclipse. The previous counter for the Albuquerque Annular Eclipse next October is still there.

Newly added to the Eclipse Countdown page:

The next North American total solar eclipse event will take place on April 08, 2024. We’re planning to be in Kerrville, TX to view this event.

Damsel took the (clickable) image on the right during a previous eclipse seen from Casper, WY on August 21, 2017. At that time, we witnessed our first total solar eclipse and are eagerly anticipating seeing another in April 2024.

Time left until the Total eclipse begins in Kerrville:

28 Nov 2022 by Astronomy Technobabble Wanderlust

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