29. August 2009 by beckster.

I don’t think we could have mixed 45 of the big 80 pound bags of quikrete to pour in the hole for the pier mount…

so we went with the haul away concrete and it worked really well.

Our friend and fellow astro buddy Gordon helped us, which made the job a lot easier even though we were running around like three year olds on too much sugar for a while.

The concrete had the consistency of pancake

batter (with rocks) or a “slump” of about 5.  It was veeeery nice!

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28. August 2009 by beckster.

After a hurry, hurry, hurry, and then waiting for the concrete to dry…this is what we wanted this part of the observatory that holds the pier to look like.

There’s a little over a yard of concrete in the sonotube with some wire some re-bar and a few drops of sweat.

The next step is to build forms for the surrounding slab that will support the observatory walls.   More to come………………….

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28. August 2009 by beckster.

In about four hours we will be busy bees pouring concrete in a big hole for the pier for our observatory.

I’m hoping the day remains sunny… ….now off to stock up on beverages!

Wish us luck!

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27. August 2009 by beckster.

Last night Jupiter was a bit freckle-faced.

It was a nice evening for sketching and I thought I felt Galileo looking over my shoulder.

3″ inch refractor with 8mm eyepiece

0.7mm Pentel P207 mechanical pencil w/HB polymer lead

Strathmore sketchbook

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26. August 2009 by beckster.

we see these research balloons ever so often……

shot this one with the mighty Nikon 5000 held up to the eyepiece on my little refractor

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